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No. «. 

THE 



ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. ? 



THE 



POWER OF CONGRESS 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW-YORK EVENING POST, BNDER THE SIONATURB OF 

" WYTHE." 



Th€.o^oY€ XwigK+V '^ 



WITH ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR. 



FOURTH EDITION. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 

No. 143 NASSAU STREET. 
1838. 

This No. contains 3i sheets.— Postage, under 100 miles, Gets., over 100, lOcts. 



POWER OF CONGRESS 



OVER THE 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 



A CIVILIZED community presupposes a government of law. If 
that government be a republic, its citizens are the sole sources, as well 
as the subjects of its power. Its constitution is their bill of directions to 
their own agents — a grant authorizing the exercise of certain powers, 
and prohibiting that of others. In the Constitution of the United 
States, whatever else may be obscure, the clause granting power to 
Congress over the Federal District may well defy misconstruction. 
Art. 1, Sec. 8, Clause 18 : " The Congress shall have power to exer- 
cise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such District." 
Congress may make laws for the District " in all cases,'^ not of all kinds. 
The grant respects the subjects of legislation, not the moral nature of 
the laws. The law-making power every where, is subject to moral 
restrictions, whether limited by constitutions or not. No legislature 
can authorize murder, nor make honesty penal, nor virtue a crime, 
nor exact impossibilities. In these and similar respects, the power of 
Congress is held in check by principles existing in the nature of 
things, not imposed by the Constitution, but presupposed and assumed 
by it. The power of Congress over the District is restricted only by 
those principles that limit ordinary legislation, and, in some respects, 
it has even wider scope. 

In common with the legislatures of the States, Congress cannot 
constitutionally pass ex post facto laws in criminal cases, nor suspend 
the writ of habeas corpus, nor pass a bill of attainder, nor abridge the 
freedom of speech and of the press, nor invade the right of the people 
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, nor enact 
laws respecting an establishment of religion. These are general lim- 
itations. Congress cannot do these things any where. The exact 
import, therefore, of the clause " in all cases whatsoever," is, on all 
subjects within the appropriate sphere of legislation. Some legisla- 
tures are restrained by constitutions from the exercise of powers 
strictly within the proper sphere of legislation. Congressional power 
over the District has no such restraint. It traverses the whole tield 
of legitimate legislation. All the power which any legislature has 
within its own jurisdiction, Congress holds over the District of Co. 
lumbia. 



4 

nas been asserted that the clause iii question respects mei'ely 
regulations, and that its sole design was to enable Congress to 
.' ct itself against popular tumults. But if the framers of the 
Jonstitution aimed to provide for a single case only, why did they 
provide for " all cases whatsoever V Besides, this clause was oppos- 
ed in many of the state conventions, because the grant of power was 
not restricted to police regulations alone. In the Virginia Convention, 
George Mason, the father of the Virginia Constitution, said, " This 
clause gives an unlimited authority in every possible case within the 
District. He would willingly give them exclusive power as far as 
respected the police and good government of the place, but he would 
give them no more." Mr. Grayson said, that control over the police 
was all-sufficient, and that the " Continental Congress never had an 
idea of exclusive legislation in all cases." Patrick Henry said, " Is it 
consistent with any principle of prudence or good policy, to grant 
unlimited, unbounded authority f Mr. Madison said in reply : " I did 
conceive that the clause under consideration was one of those parts 
which would speak its own praise. When any power is given, its de- 
legation necessarily involves authority to make laws to execute it. 
* * * * The powers which are found necessary to be given, are 
therefore delegated generally, and particular and minute specification is 
left to the legislature. * * * It is not within the limits of human 
capacity to delineate on paper all those particular cases and circum- 
stances, in which legislation by the general legislature would be ne- 
cessary." Governor Randolph said : " Holland has no ten miles square, 
but she has the Hague where the deputies of the States assemble. 
But the influence which it has given the province of Holland, to have 
the seat of government within its territory, subject in some respects to 
its control, has been injurious to the other provinces. The wisdom of 
the Convention is therefore manifest in granting to Congress exclusive 
jurisdiction over the place of their session." SJ)eh. Va. Con., p. 320.] 
In the forty-third number of the " FederaHst," Mr. Madison says : "The 
indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, 
carries its own evidence with it." 

Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according 
to the obvious import of its terms, is proved by the fact, that Virginia 
proposed an amendment to the United States' Constitution at the time 
of its adoption, providing that this clause " should be so construed as 
to give power only over the police and good government of said Dis- 
trict," jvMch amendment was rejected. 

The former part of the clause under consideration, " Congress 
shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation," gives sole jurisdic- 
tion, and the latter part, " in all cases whatsoever," defines the extent 
of it. Since, then. Congress is the sole legislature within the District, 
and since its power is limited only by the checks common to all legis- 
latures, it follows that what the law-making power is intrinsically com- 
petent to do any where, Congress is competent to do in the District of 



Columbia. Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to state and 
argue the real question at issue. 

Is THE LAW-MAKING POWER COMPETENT TO ABOLISH SlAVERY WHEN 
NOT KESTRICTED IN THAT PARTICULAR BY CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS — 
or, IS THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY WITHIN THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF 
LEGISLATION ? 

1. In every government, absolute sovereignty exists somewhere. In 
the United States it exists primarily with the people, and ultimate sove- 
reignty always exists with them. In each of the States, the legislature 
possesses a representative sovereignty, delegated by the people through 
the Constitution — the people thus committing to the legislature a por- 
tion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their constitutions the 
amount of the grant and its conditions. That the people in ajiy state 
where slavery exists, have the power to abolish it, none will deny. If 
the legislature have not the power, it is because the people have re- 
served it to themselves. Had they lodged with the legislature "pow- 
er to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," they 
would have parted with their sovereignty over the legislation of the 
State, and so far forth, the legislature would have become the people, 
clothed with all their functions, and as such competent, during the con- 
tinuance of the grant, to do whatever the people might have done be- 
fore the surrender of their power : consequently, they would have the 
power to abolish slavery. The sovereignty of the District of Columbia 
exists someiohere — where is it lodged 1 The citizens of the District 
have no legislature of their own, no representation in Congress, and 
no political power whatever. Maryland and Virginia have surren- 
dered to the United States their " full and absolute right and entire 
sovereignty," and the people of the United States have committed to 
Congress by the Constitution, the power to " exercise exclusive legisla- 
tion in all cases whatsoever over such District." 

"^ Thus, the sovereignty of the District of Columbia, is shown to reside 
solely in the Congress of the United States ; and since the power of the 
people of a state to abolish slavery within their own limits, results from 
their entire sovereignty within that state, so the power of Congress to 
abolish slavery in the District, rcsuUs from its entire sovereignty within 
the District. If it be objected that Congress can have no more power 
over the District, than was held by the legislatures of Maryland and 
Virginia, we ask what clause of the constitution graduates the power 
of C/ongress by the standard of those legislatures? Was the United 
States' constitution worked into its present siiapc under the measuring 
line and square of Virginia and Maryland ? and is its power to be brv- 
elled down till it can run in the grooves of state legislation ? There is 
a deal of prating about constitutional power over the District, as 
though Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The 
powers of those states, whether prodigies or nullities, have nothing to do 
with the question. As well thrust in the powers of the Grand Lama to 



join issue upon, or twist papai bulls into constitutional tether, w iti* 
wliich to curb congressional action. The Constitution of the Uni- 
ted States gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and it alone. 
Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution before they ceded to 
the United States the territory of the District. By their acts of ces- 
sion, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the District, and thus 
made room for that provided by the United States' constitution, Avhich 
sovereignty was to commence as soon as a cession of territory by 
states, and its acceptance by Congress, furnished a sphere for its ex- 
ercise. That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of legisla- 
tion, I ai'gue, 

2. From the fact, that slavery, as a legal system, is the 
CREATURE OF LEGISLATION. The law, by Creating slavery, not only 
affirmed its existence to be within the sphere and under the control of 
legislation, but also, the conditions and terms of its existence, and the 
question whether or not it should exist. Of course legislation would 
not travel oiit of its sphere, in abolishing what is ivithin it, and what had 
been recognized to be within it, by its own act. Cannot legislatures 
repeal their own laws ? If law can take from a man his rights, it can 
give them back again. If it can say, "your body belongs to your 
neighbor," it can say, " it belongs to yourself." If it can annul a 
man's right to himself, held by express grant from his Maker, and 
can create for another an artificial title to him, can it not annul the 
artificial title, and leave the original owner to hold himself by his 
original title ? 

3. The abolition of slavery has always been considered 
within the appropriate sphere of legislation. Almost every 
civilized nation has abolished slavery by law. The history of legisla- 
tion since the revival of letters, is a record crowded with testimony to 
the universally admitted competency of the law-making power to 
abolish slavery. It is so manifestly an attribute not merely of absolute 
sovereignty, but even of ordinary legislation, that the competency of a 
legislature to exercise it, may well nigh be reckoned among the legal'* 
axioms of the civilized world. Even the night of the dark ages was not 
dark enough to make this invisible. 

The Abolition decree of the great council of England was passed 
in 1102. The memorable Irish dt/jree , " that all the English slaves 
in the whole of Ireland, be immediately emancipated and restored to 
their former liberty," Avas issued in 1171. Slavery in England was 
abolished by a general charter of emancipation in 1381. Passing 
over many instances of the abolition of slavery by law, both during 
the middle ages and since the reformation, we find them multiplying 
as we approach our own times. In 1776 slavery was abolished in 
Prussia by special edict. In St. Domingo, Cayenne, Guadaloupe, 
and Martinique, in 1794, where more than 600,000 slaves were 
emancipated by the French government. In Java, 1811; in Ceylon, 
1815 ; in Buenos Ayres, 1816 ; in St. Helena, 1819 ; in Colombia, 
1821; by the Congress of Chili in 1821; in C«pe Colony, 1823: 



Ml Malacca, 1825; in the southuiu proviiices of Birmah, 182(5; in Bo- 
livia 1826 ; in Peru, Guatemala, and Monte Video, 1828; in Jamaica, 
Barbados, the Bermudas, the Bahamas, Anguilia, Alauritiua, St. Chris- 
tophers, Nevis, the Virgin Islands, (British), Antigua, Montserrat, 
Dominica, St. Vincents, Grenada, Beibice. Tobago, St. Lucia, Trinidad, 
Honduras, Demerara, Essequibo and tlie Cape of Good Hope, on the 1st 
of August, 1834. But waving detail.-, suffice it to say, that England, 
France, Spain, Portugal, Deumark, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and 
Germany, have all and often given their testimony to the competency 
of the legislative power to abolisli slavery. In our own country, the 
Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act of abolition in 1780, Con- 
necticut in 1784; Rhode Island, 1784; New- York, 1799 ; New-Jersey, 
in 1804; Vermont, by Constitution, in 1777 ; Massachusetts, hi 1780; 
and New-Hampshire, in 1784. 

When the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery 
has thus been recognized every where and for ages, when it has been 
embodied in the highest precedents, and celebrated in tlie thousand 
jubilees of regenerated liberty, is it an achievement of modern discov- 
ery, that such a power is a nullity? — that all these acts of abolition are 
void, and that the millions disenthralled by them, are, either tliemselves 
or their postei'ity, still legally in bondage ? 

4. Legislative power has abolished slavery m its parts. The 
law of South Carolina prohibits the working of slaves more than fifteen 
hours in the twenty-four. In other words, it takes from the slaveholder 
his power over nine hours of the slave's time daily ; and if it can take 
nine hours it may take twenty-four. The laws of Georgia prohibit the 
working of slaves on the first day of the week ; and if they can do it 
for the first, they can for the six following. The law of North Carolina 
prohibits the " immoderate" correction of slaves. If it has power to 
prohibit immoderate correction, it can jirohibit moderate correction — all 
correction, which would be virtual emancipation ; for, tiike from the 
master the power to inflict pain, and he is master no longer. Cease 
to ply the slave with the stimulus of fear, and he is free. 

The Constitution of Mississippi gives the General Assembly {)ower 
to make laws " to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them wiJh hitman- 
ity.^' The Constitution of Missouri has the same clause, and an addi- 
tional one making it the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as may 
be necessary to secure the humane treatment of the slaves. This 
grant to those legislatures, empowers them to decide what is and what 
is not "humane treatment." Otherwise it gives no "power" — the 
clause is mere waste paper, and flouts in the face of a befooled legisla- 
ture. A clause giving power to require " humane treatment" covers 
all the particulars of such treatment — gives power to exact it in all 
respects — requiring certain acts, and prohibiting others — maiming, 
branding, chaining together, separating families, floggings for learning 
the alphabet, for reading the Bible, for worshiping God according to 
conscience — the legislature has power to specify each of these, acts — 
declare that it is not " humane treatment." and prohibit it. — The legis- 



lature may also believe that driving men and women into the field, and 
forcing them to w^ork without pay, is not " humane treatment," and 
being constitutionally bound " to oblige''' masters to practise " humane 
treatment" — they have the power to prohibit such treatment, and are 
bound to do it. 

The law of Louisiana makes slaves i-eal estate, prohibiting the hold^ 
er, if he be also a land holder, to separate them from the soil.* If it 
has power to prohibit the sale without the soil, it can prohibit the sale 
with it ; and if it can prohibit the sale as property, it can prohibit the 
holding as property. Similar laws exist in the French, Spanish, and 
Portuguese colonies. The law of Louisiana requires the master to 
give his slaves a certain amount of food and clothing. If it can oblige 
the master to give the slave one thing, it can oblige him to give him 
another : if food and clothing, then wages, liberty, his own body. By 
the laws of Connecticut, slaves may receive and hold property, and 
prosecute suits in their own name as plaintiffs : [This last was also the 
law of Virginia in 1795. See Tucker's " Dissertation on Slavery," p. 
73.] There were also laws making marriage contracts legal, in certain 
contingencies, and punishing infringements of them, [" Reeve^s Law of 
Baron and Femme,^' p. 340-1.] 

Each of the laws enumerated above, does, in principle, abolish slave- 
ry ; and all of them together abolish it in fact. True, not as a wliole, 
and at a stroke, nor all in one place ; but in its parts, by piecemeal, at 
divers times and places ; thus showing that the abolition of slavery is 
within the boundary of legislation. 

In the "Washington (D. C.)City Laws," page 138, is "An Act to 
prevent horses from being cruelly beaten or abused." Similar laws 
have been passed by corporations in many of the slave states, and 
throughout the civilized world, such acts are punishable either as viola- 
tions of common law or of legislative enactments. If a legislature can 
pass laws " to prevent horses from being cruelly abused," it can pass 
laws to prevent men from being cruelly abused, and if it can prevent 
cruel abuse, it can define what it is. It can declare that to make men 
work without pay is cruel abuse, and can prohibit it. 

5. The competency of the law-biaking power to abolish sla- 
very, HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED BY ALL THE SLAVEHOLDING StATES, EITHER 

DIRECTLY OR BY IMPLICATION. Some States recognize it in their Con- 
stitutions, by giving the legislature power to emancipate such slaves as 
may "have rendered the state some distinguished service," and others 
by express prohibitory restrictions. The Constitution of Mississippi, 
Arkansas, and other States, restrict the power of the legislature in this 
respect. Why this express prohibition, if the law-making power can- 
not abolish slavery ? A stately farce indeed, with appropriate rites to 

* Virginia made slaves real estate by a law passed in 1705. Beverly's Hist, 
of Vo.., p. 93.) I do not find the precise time when this law was repealed, pro- 
b.^bl- '-,'L<-ri V]j-;.Tiniabccan.e ihe chief slave breeder for the cotton-growing and 
sugar-plauuug couutiy, and made young men and women " from fifteen to 
twenty-five" the main staple production of the State. 



induct into the Constitution a special clause, for the express purpose of 
restricting a nonentity ! — to take from the law-making power what it 
neuer had, and what cannot pertain to it ! The legislatures of those 
States have no power to abolish slavery, simply because their Consiitu- 
tions have expressly taken away that power. The people of Arkansas, 
Mississippi, &c. well knew the competency of the law-making power to 
abolish slavery, and hence their zeal to restrict it. 

The slaveholding States have recognised this power in their laws. 
Virginia passed a law in 1786 to prevent the importation of Slaves, of 
which the following is an extract : " And be it further enacted that 
every slave imported into this commonwealth contrary to the true in- 
tent and meaning of this act, shall uj)on such importation become free. 
By a law of Virginia, passed Dec. 17, 1792, a slave brought into the 
state and kept tliere a year, was free. The Maryland Court of Appeals, 
Dec, 1813 [case of Stewart vs. Oakes,] derided that a slave owned in 
Maryland, and sent by his master into Virginia to work at different 
periods, making one year in the whole, hecamo free, hoing emancipated 
by the above law. North Carolina and Georgia in their acts of cession, 
transferring to the United States the territory now constituting the 
States of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, made it a condition of 
the grant, that the provisions of the ordinance of '87 should be secured 
to the inhabitants, with the exception of the sixth article which prohibits 
slavery ; thus conceding, both the competency of law to abolish slavery, 
and the power of Congress to do it, within its jurisdiction. (These acts 
show the prevalent belief at that time, in the slaveholding States, that 
the general government had adopted a line of policy aiming at the ex- 
clusion of slavery from the entire territory of the United States, not 
included within the original States, and that this policy would be pur- 
sued unless prevented by specific and formal stipulation.) 

Slaveholding States have asserted this power in their judicial deci- 
sions. In numerous cases their highest courts have decided that if the 
legal owner of slaves takes them into those States where slavery has 
been abolished either by law or by the constitution, such removal eman- 
cipates them, such law or constitution abolishing their slavery. This 
principle is asserted in the decision of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, 
Lunsfbrd vs. Coquillon, 14 Martin's La. Reps. 401. Also by the Su- 
preme Court of Virginia, Hunter vs. Fulcher, 1 Leigh's Reps. 172. 
The same doctrine was laid down by Judge Washington, of the U. S. 
Sup. Court, Butler vs. Hopper, Washington's C. C. Reps. 508 ; also, 
by the Court of Appeals in Kentucky, Rankin vs. Lydia, 2 Marshall's 
Reps. 407 ; see also, Wilson vs. Isbell. 5 Call's Reps. 425, Spotts r*. 
Gillespie, 6 Randolph's Reps. 566. The State vs. Lassclle, 1 Black- 
ford's Reps. 60, Marie Louise vs. Mariot, 8 La. Reps. 475. Tn this 
case, which was tried in 1830, the slave had been taken by her master 
to France and brought back ; Judge Matthews, of the Supreme Court 
of Louisiana, decided that "residence for one moment" under the laws 
of France emancipated her. 

6. Eminent statesmen, themselves slaveholders, have conceded 
THIS POWEE. Washington, in a letter to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786, 
3 



m 

says : " There is not a man Irving, who wishes more sincerely than I 
do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery ; but there is only 
one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and 
that is by legislative authority." In a letter to Lafayette, May 10, 
1786, he says : " It (the abolition of slavery) certainly might, and as- 
surediy ought to be effected, and that too by legislative authority." In 
a letter to John Fenton Mercer, Sept. 9, 1786, he says : " It is among 
my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this 
country may be abolished by lato.''' In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, he 
says : " There are in Penns34vania, laws for the gradual abolition of 
slavery, v^hich neither Maiyland nor Virginia have at present, but which 
nothing is more certain than that they must have, and at a period not 
remote." Jefferson, speaking of movements in the Virginia Legisla- 
ture in 1777, for the passage of a law emancipating the slaves, 
says: "The principles of the amendment were agreed on, that is to 
say, the freedom of all born after a certain day ; but it was found 
that the public mind would not bear the proposition, yet the day is not 
far distant when it must hear and adopt it." — Jefferson's Memoirs, 
V. i. p. 35. It is well known that Jefferson, Pendleton, Mason, 
Wythe and Lee, while acting as a committee of the Virginia House 
of Delegates to revise the State Laws, prepared a plan for the gra- 
dual emancipation of the slaves by law. These men were the great- 
lights of Virginia. Mason, the author of the Virginia Constitution ; 
Pendleton, the President of the memorable Virginia Convention in 1787, 
and President of the Virginia Court of Appeals ; Wythe was the Black- 
stone of the Virginia bench, for a quarter of a century Chancellor of the 
State, the professor of law in the University of William and Mary,. 
and the preceptor of Jefferson, Madison, and Chief Justice Marshall. He 
was the author of the celebrated remonstrance to the English House 
of Commons on the subject of the stamp act. As to Jefferson, his jiame 
is his biography. 

Every slaveholding member of Congress from the States of Mary- 
land, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, voted for the 
celebrated ordinance of 1787, which abolished the slavery then existing 
in the Northwest Territory. Patrick Henry, in his well known letter 
to Robert Pleasants, of Virginia, January 18, 1773, says: "I believe 
a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this 
lamentable evil." William Pinkney, of Maryland, advocated the abo- 
htion of slavery by law, in the legislature of that State, in 1789. Lu- 
ther Martin urged the same measure both in the Federal Convention, 
and in his report to the Legislature of Maryland. In 1796, St. George 
Tucker, of Virginia, professor of law in the University of William and 
Mary, and Judge of the General Court, published a dissertation on 
slavery, urging the abolition of slavery by law. 

John Jay, while New- York was yet a slave State, and himself in 
law a slaveholder, said in a letter from Spain, in 1786, "An excellent 
law might be made out of the Pennsylvania one, for the gradual aboli- 
tion of slavery. Were I in your legislature, I would present a Dill for 
the purpose, and I would never cease moving it till it became a law, or 
I ceased to be a member." 



11 

Governor Tompkins, in a message to the Legislature of Nt^w-York, 
January 8, 1812, said : "To devise the means for the gradual and 
ultimate extermination from amongst us of slavery, is a work worthy tiio 
representatives of a polished and enlightened nation." 

The Virginia Legislature asserted this power in 1832. At the close 
of a month's debate, the following proeeedings were had. I extract 
from an editorial article in the Richmond Whig, Jan. 26, 1832. 

" The report of the Select Committee, adverse to legislation on 
the subject of Abolition, was in these words : Resolved, as the opinion 
of this Committee, that it is inexpedient for the present, to make 
any legislative eniictments for the aholition of slavery." This Report 
Mr. Preston moved to reverse, and thus to declare that it was expe- 
•dient, now to make legislative onactuients for the abiilition of slaveiy. 
This was meeting the question in its strongest form. It demanded 
•action, and immediate action. On this proposition the vote was 58 to 
73. Many of the most decided friends of abolition voted against the 
amendment, because they thought public opinion not sufficiently pre- 
pared for it, and that it might prejudice the cause to move too rapidly. 
The vote on Mr. Witcher's motion to postpojic the whole subject 
■indefinitely, indicates the true state of opinion in the House. That 
was the test question, and was so intended and proclaimed by its mover. 
That motion was negatived, 71 to 60; showing a majority of 11, who 
by that vote, declared their belief that at the proper time, and in the 
proper mode, Virginia ought to commence a system of gradual aboli- 
tion." 

7. The Congress of the United States have asserted this 
jpowER. The ordinance of '87, declaring that there should be " neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude," in the North Western Territory, 
abolished the slavery then existing there. The Sup. Court of Missis, 
sippi, [Harvey vs. Decker, Walker's Mi. Reps. 36,] declared that the 
ordinance of '87 emancipated the slaves then held there. In this de- 
■cision the question is ai'gued ably and at great length. The Supreme 
Court of La. made the same decision in the case of Forsyth vs. Nash, 
4 Martin's La. Reps. 385. The same doctrine was laid down by 
Judge Porter, (late United States Senator from La.,) in his decision at 
the March term of the La. Supreme Court, 1830, Merry vs. Chexnai- 
<ler, 20 Martin's Reps. 699. 

That the ordinance abolished the slavery then existing there is also 
•shown by the fact, that persons holding slaves in the territory petition- 
€d for the repeal of the article abolishing slavery, assigning that as a 
reason. " The petition of the citizens of Randolph and St. Clair 
counties in the Illinois country, stating that they were in possession of 
slaves, and praying the repeal of that act (the 6th article; of the ordi- 
nance of '87) and the passage of a law legalizing slavery there." 
[Am. State papers. Public Lands, v. 1. p. 69.] Congress passed this 
ordinance before the United States' Constitution was adopted, when it 
derived all its authority from the articles of Confederation, whicli con- 
ferred powers of legislation far more restricted tlian those committed 
to Congress over the District and Territories by the United States' 



12 

Constitution. Now, we ask, how does the Constitution abridge the 
powers which Congress possessed under the articles of confederation? 

The abolition of the slave trade by Congress, in 1808, is another 
illustration of the competency of legislative power to abolish slavery. 
The African slave trade has become such a mere tecJinic, in common 
parlance, that the fact of its being proper slavery is overlooked. The 
buying and selling, the transportation, and the horrors of the middle 
passage, were mere incidents of the slavery in which the victims were 
held. Let things be called by their own names. When Congress 
abolished the African slave trade, it abolished slavery — supreme 
slavery — power frantic with license, trampling a whole hemisphere 
scathed with its fires, and running down with blood. True, Congress 
did not, in the abolition of the slave trade, abolish all the slavery 
within its jurisdiction, but it did abolish all the slavery in one pari 
of its jurisdiction. What has rifled it of power to abolish slavery in 
another part of its jurisdiction, especially in that part where it has 
" exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever ?" 

8. The Constitution of the United States recognizes this 
POWER BY THE MOST CONCLUSIVE IMPLICATION. Ill Art. 1, sec. 3, clause 
1, it prohibits the abolition of the slave trade previous to 1808 : thus 
implying the power of Congress to do it at once, but for the restric- 
tion ; and its power to do it unconditionally, when that restriction 
ceased. Again ; In Art. 4, sec. 2, " No person held to service or 
labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall 
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from 
said service or labor." This clause was inserted, as all admit, to pre- 
vent the runaway slave from being emancipated by the laws of the 
free states. If these laws had no power to emancipate, why this con- 
stitutional guard to prevent it ? 

The insertion of the clause, was the testimony of the eminent 
jurists that framed the Constitution, to the existence of the power, and 
their pubhc proclamation, that the abolition of slavery was within the 
appropriate sphere of legislation. The right of the owner to that which 
is rightfully property, is founded on a principle of universal law, and 
is recognized and protected by all civilized nations ; property in slaves 
is, by general consent, an exception ; hence slaveholders insisted upon 
the insertion of this clause in the United States' Constitution, that they 
might secure by an express provision, that from which protection is 
withheld, by the acknowledged principles of universal law.* By de- 
manding this provision, slaveholders consented that their slaves should 

* The fact, that under the articles of Confederation, slaveholders, whose 
slaves had escaped into free states, had no legal power to force them back, — 
that now they have no power to recover, by process of law, their slaves who es- 
cape to Canada, the South An>erican States, or to Europe — the ease already 
cifed, in which the Supreme Court of Louisiana decided, that residence "for 
onfi vioment," under the laws of France emancipated an American slave — the 
case of Pulton, rs. Lewis. 3 Har. and John's Reps., 56, where the slave of a St. 
Domiagc slaveholder, who broutfht him to Maryland in '93, was pronotinced 
free by the Maryland Court of Appeals — are illustrations of the acknowledged 
truth here asserted, that by the consent of the civilized world, and on the prin^ 



18 

not be recognized as property by the United States' Constitution, and 
hence they found their claim, on the fact of their being *^^ persons, and 
held to service." 

9. Congress has unquestionable power to adopt the Common 
Law, as the legal system, within its exclusive jurisdiction. — 
This has been done, with certain restrictions, in most of the States, 
either by legislative acts or by constitutional implication. The coiM- 
MON law knows no SLAVES. Its principles annihilate slavery wher- 
ever they touch it. It is a universal, unconditional, abolition act. 
Wherever slavery is a legal system, it is so only by statute law, 
and in violation of the common law. The declaration of Lord Chief 
Justice Holt, that, " by the common law, no man can have property 
in another," is an acknowledged axiom, and based upon the well 
known common law definition of property. " The subjects of domin- 
ion or property are things, as contra-distinguished from p^rjorw." Let 
Congress adopt the common law in the District of Columbia, and 
slavery there is abolished. Congress may well be at home in com- 
mon law legislation, for the common law is the grand element of the 
United States' Constitution. All its fundamental provisions are in- 
stinct with its spirit ; and its existence, principles, and paramount au- 
thorit\% are presupposed and assumed throughout the whole. The 
preamble of the Constitution j)lants the standard of the Common Law 
immovably in its foreground. " We, the people of the United States, in 
order to establish justice, &c., do ordain and establish this Constitu- 
tion;" thus proclaiming devotion to justice, as the controlling mo- 
tive in the organization of the Government, and its secure establish- 
ment the chief object of its aims. By this most solemn recognition, 
the common law, that grand legal embodyment of "justice " and fun- 
damental right — was made the groundwork of the Constitution, and 
intrenched behind its strongest munitions. The second clause of Sec. 
9, Art. 1 ; Sec. 4, Art. 2, and the last clause of Sec. 2, Art. 3, 
with Articles 7, 8, 9, and 13 of the Amendments, are also ex- 
press recognitions of the common law as the presiding Genius of the 
Constitution. 

By adopting the common law within its exclusivb jurisdiction Con- 
gress would carry out the principles of our glorious Declaration, and 
follow the highest precedents in our national history and jurisprudence. 
It is a political maxim as old as civil legislation, that laws should be 
strictly homogeneous with the principles of the government whose will 
they express, embodying and carrj'ing them out — being indeed the 
principles themselves, in preceptive form — representatives alike of the 
nature and power of the Govenunent — standing ilhistrations of its 
genius and spirit, while they proclaim and enforce its authority. Who 
needs be told that slavery makes war upon the prrincipies of the Decla- 

ciples of universal law, slaves are not ^^ property,'^ and that whenever held as 
property under law, it is only by positive legislative acts, Ibrcibly seitinR aside 
the law of nature, the common law, and the principles of nniversnl justice and 
right between man and man,— principles paramount to all law, and from which 
alone, law derives its intrinsic authoritative sanction. 



14 

ration, and the spirit of the Constitution, and that these and the princi- 
ples of the common law gravitate towards each other with irrepressible 
affinities, and mingle into one ? The common law came hither with 
our pilgrim fathers ; it was their birthright, their panoply, their glory, 
and their song of rejoicing in the house of their pilgrimage. It 
covered them in the day of their calamity, and their trust was under 
the shadow of its wings. From the first settlement of the country, the 
genius of our institutions and our national spirit have claimed it as a 
common possession, and exulted in it with a common pride. A centu- 
ry ago. Governor Pownall, one of the most eminent constitutional 
jurists of colonial times, said of the common law, " In all the colonies 
the common law is received as the foundation and main body of their 
law." In the Declaration of Rights, made by the Continental Con- 
gress at its first session in '74, there was the following resolution : 
" Resolved, That the respective colonies are entitled to the common 
law of England, and esjjecially to the great and inestimable privilege 
of being tried by their peers of the vicinage according to the course 
of that law." Soon after the organization of the general government. 
Chief Justice Ellsworth, in one of his decisions on the bench of 
the U. S. Sup. Court, said : " The common law of this country 
remains the same as it was before the revolution." Chief Justice 
Marshall, in his decision in the case of Livingston vs. Jefferson,, 
said : " When our ancestors migrated to America, they brought vv'ith 
them the common law of their native country, so far as it was appli- 
cable to their new situation, and I do not conceive that the revolution 
in any degree changed the relations of man to man, or the law which 
regulates them. In breaking our political connection with the parent 
state, we did not break our connection with each other." [HaWs 
Law Journal, new series.] Mr. Duponceau, in his " Dissertation on 
the Jurisdiction of Courts in the United States," says, " I consider 
the common law of England the j^is commune of the United States. 
I think I can lay it down as a correct principle, that the common 
law of England, as it was at the time of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, still continues to be the national law of this country, 
so far as it is applicable to our present state, and subject to the 
modifications it has received here in the course of nearly half a 
century." Chief Justice Taylor of North Carolina, in his decision in 
the case of the State vs. Reed, in 1823, Hawkes' N. C. Reps. 454, 
says, " a law of paramount obligation to the statute, was violated by 
the offence — comihon law, founded upon the law of nature, and con- 
firmed by revelation." The legislation of the United States abounds 
in recognitions of the principles of the common law, asserting their 
paramount binding power. Sparing details, of which our national 
state papers are full, we illustrate by a single instance. It was made 
a condition of the admission of Louisiana into the Union, that the right 
of trial by jury should be secured to all her citizens, — the United 
States government thus employing its power to enlarge the jurisdiction 
of the common law In this its great representative. 

paving shown that the abolition of slavery is within the compe- 



15 

tency of ihe law-making power, when unrestricted by constitutional 
provisions, and that tiic legislation of Congress ovc^r the District is 
thus unrestricted, its power to abolish slavery there is cstablisiied We 
argue it further, from the fact that, 

10. Slavery now exists in the District by an act of Congkess. 
In the act of 16th July, 1790, Congress accepted portions of territory 
offered by the states of Maryland and Virginia, and enact* 'd that the 
laws, as they then were, should continue in force, " until Congress 
shall otherwise by law provide." Under these laws, adopted by Con- 
gress, and in effect re-enacted and made laws of the District, the slaves 
there are now held. 

Is Congress so impotent in its own " exclusive jurisdiction" that it 
cannot " otherwise by law provide ?" If it can say, what shall be 
considered property, it can say what shall not be considered jn-operty. 
Suppose a legislature should enact that marriage contracts should be mere 
bills of sale, making a husband the proprietor of his wife, as his bona 
fde property ; and suppose husbands should herd their wives in droves 
for the market as beasts of burden, or for the brothel as victims of 
lust, and then prate about their inviolable legal property, and deny 
the power of the legislature, which stamped them " property," to undo 
its own wrong, and secure to wives by law the rights of human 
beings. Would such cant about " legal rights" be heeded where 
reason and justice held sway, and where law, based upon fundamen- 
tal morality, received homage ? If a frantic legislature pronounces 
woman a chattel, has it no power, with returning reason, to take 
back the blasphemy ? Is the impious edict irrepealable ? Be it, that 
with legal forms it has stamped wives " wares." Can no legislation 
blot out the brand ? Must the handwriting of Deity on human na- 
ture be expunged for ever ? Has law no power to stay the erasing 
pen, and tear ofT the scrawled label that covers up the image of god ? 

II. THE POWER OF CONGRESS TO ABOLISH SLAVERY 
IN THE DISTRICT HAS BEEN, TILL RECENTLY, UNI- 
VERSALLY CONCEDED. 

I. It has been assumed by Congress itself. The following re- 
cord stands on the journals of the House of Representatives for 1804, 
p. 225 : " On motion made and seconded that the House do come to 
the following resolution : ' Resolved, That from and afler the 4th day 
of July, 1805, all blacks and people of color that shall be born within' 
the District of Columbia, or whose mothers shall be the property of 
any person residing within the said District, shall be free, the males at 
the age of — , and the females at the age of — . The main question 
being taken that the House do agree to said motions as originally pro- 
posed, it was negatived by a majority of 46.'" Though the motion 
was lost, it was on the ground of its alleged inexpediency alone. In 
the debate which preceded the vote, the poxoer of Congress was con- 
ceded. In March, 1816, the House of Representatives passed the fol- 
lowing resolution : — " Resolved, That a committee be appointed to in- 
quire into the existence of an inhuman and illegal traffic in slaves. 



lb 

carried on in and through the District of Columbia, and to report 
whether any and what measures are necessary for putting a stop to the 
same." 

On the 9th of January, 1829, the House of Representatives passed 
the following resolution by a vote of 114 to 66 : " Resolved, That the 
Committee on the District of Columbia, be instructed to inquire into 
the expediency of providing by law for the gradual abolition of slavery 
within the District, in such a manner that the interests of no individual 
shall be injured thereby." Among those who voted in the affirmative 
were Messrs. Barney of Md., Armstrong of Va., A. H. Shepperd of 
N. C, Blair of Tenn., Chilton and Lyon of Ky., Johns of Del., and 
others from slave states. 

2. It has been conceded by committees of Congress, on the 
District of Columbia. — In a report of the committee on the District, 
Jan. 11, 1837, by their chairman, Mr. Powell of Va., there is the fol- 
lowing declaration : — " The Congress of the United States, has by the 
constitution exclusive jui'isdiction over the District, and has power 
upon this subject (slavery,) as upon all other subjects of legislation, to 
exercise unlimited discretion.^' Reports of Comms. 2d Sess. 19th 
Cong. V. iv. No. 43. In December, 1831, the committee on the Dis- 
trict, Mr. Doddridge of Va., Chairman, reported, "That until the ad- 
joining states act on the subject, (slavery) it would be (not unconstitu- 
tional but) unwise and impolitic, if not unjust, for Congress to inter- 
fere." In April, 1836, a special committee on abolition memorials re- 
ported the following resolutions by their Chairman, Mr. Pinckney of 
South Carolina : " Resolved, That Congress possesses no constitu- 
tional authority to interfere in any way with the institution of slavery 
in any of the states of this confederacy." 

" Resolved, That Congress ought not to interfere in any way with 
slavery in the District of Columbia." " Ought not to interfere," care- 
fully avoiding the phraseology of the first resolution, and thus in effect 
conceding the constitutional power. In a widely circulated " Address 
to the electors of the Charleston District," Mr. Pinkney is thus de- 
nounced by his own constituents : " He has proposed a resolution 
which is received by the plain common sense of the whole country as 
a concession that Congress has authority to abolish slavery in the 
District of Columbia." 

3. It has been conceded by the citizens of the District. A 
petition for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District, signed by 
nearly eleven hundred of its citizens, was presented to Congress, 
March 24, 1827. Among the signers to this petition, were Chief 
Justice Cranch, Judge Van Ness, Judge Morsel, Prof. J. M. Staughton, 
and a large number of the most influential inhabitants of the District. 
Mr. Dickson, of New York, asserted on the floor of Congress in 1835, 
that the signers to this petition owned more than half the property in 
the District. The accuracy of this statement has never been ques- 
tioned. 

This power has been conceded by grand juries of the dis- 
trict. The grand jury of the county of Alexandria, at the Majcb 



17 

term, 1802, presented the domestic slave trade as a grievance, and 
said, *' We consider these grievances demanding legislative redress." 
Jan. 19, 1829, Mr. Alexander, of Virginia, presented a representation 
of the grand jury in the city of Washington, remonstrating against 
" any measure for the abolition of slavery within said District, unless 
accompanied b}^ measures for the removal of the emancipated from 
the same ;" thus, not only conceding the power to emancipate slaves, 
but affirming an additional power, that of excluding them when free. 
Journal H. R. 1828-9, p. 174. 

4. This power has been conceded by state legislatures. In 
1828 the Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed their Senators in Con- 
gress " to procure, if practicable, the passage of a law to abolish sla- 
very in the District of Columbia." Jan. 28, 1829, the House of As- 
sembly of New York passed a resolution, that their " Senators in Con- 
gress be instructed to make every possible exertion to effect the pas- 
sage of a law for the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia." 
In February, 1837, the Senate of Massachusetts " Resolved, That 
Congress having exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia, pos- 
sess the right to abolish slavery and the slave trade therein." The 
House of Representatives passed the following resolution at the same 
.session : " Resolved, That Congress having exclusive legislation in 
the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish slavery in said 
District." November 1, 1837, the Legislature of Vermont, " Re- 
solved that Congress have the full power by the constitution to abolish 
slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and in the 
territories." 

In May, 1838, the Legislature of Comiecticut passed a resolution 
asserting the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of 
Columbia. 

In January, 183G, the Legislature of South Carolina " Resolved, 
Tiiat we should consider the abolition of Slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia as a violation of the rights of the citizens of that District de- 
rived from the implied conditions on which that territory was ceded to 
the General Government." Instead of denying the constitutional 
power, they virtually admit its existence, by striving to smother it under 
an impUcaiion. In February, 1836, the Legislature of North Carolina 
" Resolved, That, although by the Constitution all legislative power 
over the District of Columbia is vested in the; Congress of the United 
States, yet we would deprecate any legislative action on the part of 
that body towards liberating the slaves of that District, as a breach of 
faith towards those States by whom the territory' was originally ceded. 
Here is a full concession ol' the pmcer. February 2, 1830, tlie Vir. 
ginia Legislature passed unanimously the followii^g resolution : " Re- 
solved, by the General Assembly of Virginia, that the following article 
be proposed to the several states of this Union, ajid to Congress, as 
an amendment of the Constitution of the United States : " The powers 
of Congress shall not be so construed as to authorize the passage of 
any law for the emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia, 
without the consent of the individual proprietors thereof, unless by the 
3 



18 

sanction of the Legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, and under snch 
conditions as they f,hall by law prescribe." 

Fifty years after the formation of the United States' constitution the 
states are solemnly called upon by the Virginia Legislature, to amend 
that instrument by a clause asserting that, in the grant to Congress of 
" exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever'' over the District, the 
" case" of slavery is not included ! ! What could have dictated such 
a resolution but the conviction that the power to abolish slavery is an 
irresistible inference from the constitution as it is ? The fact that the 
same legislature passed afterward a resolution, though by no means 
unanimously, that Congress does not possess the power, abates not a 
tittle of the testimony in the first resolution. March 23d, 1824, " Mr. 
Brown presented the resolutions of the General Assembly of Ohio, 
recommending to Congress the consideration of a system for the grad- 
ual emancipation of persons of color held in servitude in the United 
States." On the same day, " Mr. Noble, of Indiana, communicated 
a resolution from the legislature of that state, respecting the gradual 
emancipation of slaves within the United States." Journal of the 
United States' Senate, for 1824-5, p. 231. 

The Ohio and Indiana resolutions, by taking for granted the general 
power of Congress over the subject of slavery, do virtually assert its 
special power within its exclusive jurisdiction. 

5. This power has been conceded by bodies of citizens in the. 
SLAVE states. The petition of eleven hundred citizens of the District, 
has been already mentioned. " March 5, 1830, Mr. Washington pre- 
sented a memorial of inhabitants of the county of Frederick, in the 
state of Maryland, praying that provision be made for the gradual 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia." Journal H. R, 
1829-30, p. 358. 

March 30, 1828. Mr. A. H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, present. 
ed a memorial of citizens of that state, " praying Congress to take 
measures for the entire abolition of slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia." Journal H, R. 1829-30, p. 379. 

January 14, 1822. Mr. Rhea, of Tennessee, presented a memo- 
rial of citizens of that state, praying that " provision may be made, 
whereby all slaves that may hereafter be born in the District of Colum- 
bia, shall be free at a certain period of their lives." Journal H. R. 
1821—22, p. 142. 

December 13, 1824. Mr. Saunders of North Carolina, presented 
a memorial of the citizens of that state, praying " that measures may 
be taken for the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States." 
Journal H. R. 1824—25, p. 27. 

December 16, 1828. " Mr. Barnard presented the memorial of 
the American Convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, held 
in Baltimore, praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of 
Columbia." Journal U. S. Senate, 1828—29, p. 24. 

6. Distinguished statesmen and jurists in the slaveholding 
STATES, HAVE CONCEDED THIS POWER. The testimony of Messrs. 
Doddridge, and Powell, of Virginia, Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges 



19 

Morsel and Van Ness, of the District, has already been given. In 
the debate in Congress on the memorial of the Society of Friends, in 
1790, Mr. Madison, in speaking of the territories of the United Stales, 
explicitly declared, from his own knowledge of the views of the mem- 
bers of the convention that framed the constitution, as well as from the 
obvious import of its terms, that in the territories, " Congress have cer- 
tainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery." Congress can 
have» no more power over the territories than that of •' exclusive 
legislation in all cases whatsoever," consequently, according to Mr. 
Madison, " it has certainly the power to regulate the subject of sla- 
very in the " District. In March, 1816, Mr. Randolph of Virginia, 
introduced a resolution for putting a stop to the domestic slave trade 
within the District. December 12, 1827, Mr. Barney, of Maryland, 
presented a memorial for abolition in the District, and moved that it 
be printed. Mr. McDuffic, of S. C, objected to the printing, but 
" expressly admitted the right of Congress to grant to the people of the 
District any measure which they might deem necessary to free them- 
selves from the deplorable evil." — [See letter of Mr. Claiborne of 
Miss, to his constituents published in the Washington Globe, May 9, 
1836.] The sentiments of Mr. Clay of Kentucky, on the subject are 
well known. In a speech before the U. S. Senate, in 1836, he declar- 
ed the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District " unques- 
xionable." Messrs. Blair, of Tennessee, and Chilton, Lyon, and R. 
M. Johnson, of Kentucky, A. H. Shepperd, of N. C, Mes-srs. Armstrong 
and Smyth of Va., Messrs. Dorsey, Archer, and Barney, of Md., and 
Johns, of Del., with numerous others from slave states have asserted 
the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. In the 
speech of Mr. Smyth, of Virginia, on the Missouri question, January 
28, 1820, he says on this point : " If the future freedom of the blacks 
is your real object, and not a mere pretence, why do you begin here / 
"Within the ten miles square, you have undoubted power to exercise 
exclusive legislation. Produce a bill to emancipate the slaves in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, or, if you prefer it, to emancipate those born here- 
after." 

To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President 
of the United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. In a 
speech before the U. S. Senate, February 1, 1820, (National Intelli- 
gencer, April 29, 1829,) he says : " In the District of Columbia, con- 
taining a population of 30,000 souls, and probably as many slaves as 
the whole territory of Missouri, the power op providing for their 
EMANCIPATION RESTS WITH CoNGRESs ALONE. Why thcii, this heart- 
rending sympathy for the slaves of Missouri, and this cold insensi- 
bility, this eternal apathy, towards the slaves in the District of Co- 
lumbia ? 

It is quite unnecessary to add, that the most distinguished northern 
statesmen of both political parties, have always alHrnicd the power of 
Congress to abolish slavery in the District. Prtsi(knt Van Hincn in 
his letter of March 6, 1836, to a committee of Grntlomon in North 
Carolina, says. " I would not, from the light now before me, feci my- 



20 

self safe in pronouncing that Congress does not possess the power of 
abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia." This declaration of 
the President is consistent with his avowed sentiments touching the 
Missouri question, on which he coincided with such men as Daniel D. 
Thompkins, De V/itt Clinton, and others, whose names are a host.* 
It is consistent, also with his recommendation in his last message, in 
which speaking of the District, he sti'ongly urges upon Congress " a 
thorough and careful revision of its local government," speaks of the 
" entire independence " of the people of the District " upon Congress," 
recommends that a " uniform system of local government " be adopt- 
ed, and adds, that " although it was selected as the seat of the General 
Government, the site of its public edifices, the depository of its 
archives, and the residences of officers intrusted with large amounts 
of public property, and the management of public business, yet it never 
has been subjected to, or received, that special and comprehensive legis- 
lation which these circumstances peculiarly demanded." 

The tenor of Mr. Tallmadge's speech on the right of petition, and 
of Mr. Webster's on the reception of abolition memorials, may be 
taken as universal exponents of the sentiments of northern statesmen 
as to the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia. 

An explicit declaration, that an " overwhelming majority''' of the . 
present Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District 
has just been made by Robert Barnwell Rhett, a member of 
Congress from South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston 
Mercury of Dec. 27, 1837. The following is an extract: 

" The time has arrived when we must have new guaranties under 
the constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. Our views of the 
constitution are not those of the majority. An overwhelming majority 
think that hy the constitution, Congress may abolish slavery in the District 
of Columbia — 7]iay abolish the slave trade bettveen the State,s ; that is, it 
may prohibit their being carried out of the State in ichich they are — and 
prohibit it in all the territories, Florida among them. They think, not 
WITHOUT STRONG REASONS, that the power of Congress extends to all qf 
these subjects.^'' 

Direct iesiimony to show that the power of Congress to abolish 
slavery in the District, has always till recently been imiversaTly con- 

* Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate of New- York, voted for 
the following preamble and resolutions, which passed unanimously : — Jan. 28th, 
1820. " Whereas the inhibiting the further extension of slavery in the United 
States, is a subject of deep concern to the people of this state : and whereas, 
we consider slavery as an evil much to be deplored, and that every constitu- 
tional barrier should be interposed to preveiit its further extev simi : and that the 
constitution of the United States clearly gives Congress the right to require new 
states, not comprised within the original boundary of the United States, to 
make the prohibition, of slavery a condition of their admission into the Union : 
Therefore, 

Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of Congress 
be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of any territory 
not comprised as aforesaid, without making the prohibition of slavery therein 
an indispensible condition of admission. 



21 

ceded, is perhaps quite superfluous. We subjoin, however, the fol- 
lowing : 

The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Mis- 
souri question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of 
slavery in Missouri would be unconstitutional, declares, that the power 
of Congress over slavery in the District "could not be questioned." 
In the speech of JMr. Smyth, of Va., also quoted above, he declares 
the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District to be " un- 
doubted." 

Mr. Sutherland, of Penn., in a speech in the House of Representa- 
tives, on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus reported 
in the Washington Globe, of May 9th, '36. " He replied to the re- 
mark that the report conceded that Congress had a right to legislate 
upon the subject in the District of Columbia, and said that such a 

RIGHT HAD NEVER BEEN, TILL RECENTLY, DENIED." 

The American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, with a 
large circulation and list of contributors in the slave states, holds the 
following language in the September No. 1833, p. 55 : " Under this 
' exclusive jurisdiction,' granted by the constitution, Congress has power 
to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. It 
would hardly be necessary to state this as a distinct proposition, had it 
not been occasionally questioned. The truth of the assertion, how- 
ever, is too obvious to admit of argument — and we believe has never 

BEEN DISPUTED BY PERSONS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE CONSTITU- 
TION." 



OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS CON- 
SIDERED. 

We now proceed to notice briefly the main arguments that have 
been employed in Congress and elsewhere against the power of Con- 
gress to abolish slavery in the District. One of the most plausible is, 
that " the conditions on which Maryland and Virginia ceded the Dis- 
trict to the United States, would be violated, if Congress should abol- 
ish slaveiy there." The reply to this is, that Congress had no power 
to accept a cession coupled with conditions restricting that " power of 
exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District," 
which was given it by the constitution. 

To show the futility of the objection, we insert here the acts of 
cession. The cession of Maryland was made in November, 1788, 
and is as follows : " An act to cede to Congress a district of ten 
miles square in this state for the seat of the government of the United 
States." 

" Be it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, that the 
representatives of this state in the House of Representatives of the 
Congress of the United States, appointed to assemble at New- York, 
on the first Wednesday of March next, be, and th(>y are hereby autho. 
rized and required on the behalf of this state, to cede to the Congress 



33 

of the United States, any district in this state, not exceeding ten miles 
square, which the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the seat of 
government of the United States." Laws of Md., v. 2., c. 46. 

The cession of Virginia was made on the 3d of December, 1788, in 
the following words : 

" Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That a tract of country, 
not exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser quantity, to be located 
within the limits of the State, and in any part thereof^ as Congress 
may, by law, direct, shall be, and the same is hereby forever ceded 
and relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, 
in full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil, as 
of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and 
effect of the eighth section of the first article of the government of the 
constitution of the United States." 

But were there no provisos to these acts? The Maryland act had 
none. The Virginia act had this proviso : " Sect. 2. Provided, that 
nothing herein contained, shall be construed to vest in the United 
States any right of property in the soil, or to affect the rights of indi- 
viduals therein, otherwise than the same shall or may be transferred by 
such individuals to the United States." 

This specification touching the soil was merely definitive and expla- 
natory of that clause in the act of cession, '■^full and absolute right." 
Instead of restraining the power of Congress on slavery and other sub- ' 
jects, it even gives it freer course ; for exceptions to parts of a rule, 
give double confirmation to those parts not embraced in the exceptions. 
If it was the design of the proviso to restrict congressional action on 
the subject of slavery, why is the soil alone specified ? As legal instru- 
ments are not paragons of economy in words, might not " John Doe," 
out of his abundance, and without spoiling his style, have afforded an 
additional word — at least a hint — that slavery was meant, though noth- 
ing was said about it ? 

But again, Maryland and Virginia, in their acts of cession, declare 
them to be made "in pursuance of" that clause of the con>;titution 
which gives to Congress " exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever " 
over the ten miles square — thus, instead of restricting that clause, both 
States confirm it. Now, their acts of cession either accorded with 
that clause of the constitution, or they conflicted with it. If they con- 
flicted with it, accepting the cessions was a violation of the constitution. 
The fact that Congress accepted the cessions, proves that in its views 
their terJiis did not conflict with its constitutional grant of power. The 
inquiry whether these acts of cession were consistent or inconsistent 
with the United States' constitution, is totally irrelevant to the question 
at issue. What saith the constitution ? That is the question. Not, 
what saith Virginia, or Maryland, or — equally to the point — John Bull ! 
If Maryland and Virginia had been the authorized interpreters of the 
constitution for the Union, these acts of cession could hardly have been 
more magnified than they have been recently by the southern delega- 
tion in Congress. A true understanding of thu constitution can be 



38 

had, forsooth, only by holding it up in the light of Maryland and Vir- 
ginia legislation ! 

We are told, again, that those States would not have ceded the Dis- 
trict if they had supposed the constitution gave Congress power to abo- 
lish slavery in it. 

This comes with an ill grace from Maryland and Virginia. They 
knew the constitution. They were parties to it. They had sifted it, 
clause by clause, in their State conventions. They had weighed its 
words in the balance — they had tested them as by fire ; and, finally, 
after long pondering, they adopted the constitution. And afterward, 
self-moved, they ceded the ten i^iiles square, and declared the cession 
made " in pursuance of " that oft-cited clause, " Congress shall have 
power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over 
such District." And now verily "they would not have ceded if they 
had supposed /" &c. Cede it they did, and in " i'uU and absolute right 
both of soil and persons." Congress accepted the cession — state power 
over the District ceased, and congressional power over it commenced, 
— and now, the sole question to be settled is, the amount of power over 
the District lodged in Congress by the constitution. The constitution — 
THE CONSTITUTION — that is the point. Maryland and Virginia " supposi- 
tions " must be potent suppositions to abrogate a clause of the United 
States' Constitution ! That clause either gives Congress power to abol- 
ish slavery in the District, or it does 710/ — and that point is to be settled, 
not by state " suppositions," nor state usages, nor state legislation, but 
by the terms of the clause themselves. 

Southern members of Congress, in the recent discussions, have con- 
ceded the power of a contingent abohtion in the District, by suspending 
it upon the consent of the people. Such a doctrine from declaimers 
like Messrs. Alford, of Georgia, and Walker, of Mississippi, would ex- 
cite no surprise ; but that it should be honored with the endorsement 
of such men as Mr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun, is quite unaccountable. 
Are attributes of sovereignty mere creatures of contingency ? Is dele- 
gated authority mere conditional permission ? Is a constitutional power 
to be exercised by those who hold it, only by popular sulfe ranee ? 
Must it lie helpless at the pool of public sentiment, waiting the gracious 
troubling of its waters 1 Is it a lifeless corpse, save only when popular 
" consent " deigns to puff breath into its nostrils ? Besides, if the con- 
sent of the people of the District be necessary, the consent of the whole 
people must be had — not that of a majority, however large. Majorities, 
to he authoritative, must be legal — and a legal majority without legisla- 
tive power, or right of representation, or even the electoral franchise, 
would be truly an anomaly ! In the District of Columbia, such a thing 
as a majority in a legal sense is unknown to law. To talk of the power 
of a majority, or the will of a majority there, is mere mouthing. A ma- 
jority ? Then it has an authoritative will, and an organ to make it 
known, and an executive to carry it into effect — Where are they? 
We repeat it — if the consent of the people of the District be necessaiy, 
the consent of every one is necessary — and universal consent will come 
only with the Greek Kalends and a " perpetual motion." A single in- 



24 

dividual might thus perpetuate slavery in defiance of the expressed will 
of a whole people. The most common form of this fallacy is given by 
Mr. Wise, of Virginia, in his speech, February 16, 1835, in which he 
denied the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, unless 
the inhabitants owning slaves petitioned for it ! ! Southern members 
of Congress at the present session (1837-8) ring changes almost daily 
upon the same fallacy. What ! pray Congress to use a power which it 
has not ? " It is required of a man according to what he hath,'^ saith 
the Scripture. I commend Mr. Wise to Paul for his ethics. Would 
that he had got his logic of him ! If Congress does not possess the 
DOwer, why taunt it with its weakness, t)y asking its exercise ? Petition- 
ing, according to Mr. Wise, is, in matters of legislation, omnipotence 
itself ; the very source of all constitutional power ; for, asking Con- 
gress to do what it cannot do, gives it the power ! — to pray the exer- 
cise of a power that is not, creates it ! A beautiful theory ! Let us 
work it both ways. If to petition for the exercise of a power that is 
not, creates it — to petition against the exercise of a power that is, anni- 
hilates it. As soutliern gentlemen are partial to summary processes, 
pray, sirs, try the virtue of your own recipe on " exclusive legislation 
in all cases whatsoever ;" a better subject for experiment and test of the 
prescription could not be had. But if the petitions of the citizens of the 
District give Congress the right to abolish slavery, they impose the 
duty ; if they confer constitutional authority, they create constitutional 
obligation. If Congress 7nay abolish because of an expression of their, 
will, it 7nust abolish at the bidding of that will. If the people of the 
District are a source of poioer to Congress, their expressed will has the 
force of a constitutional provision, and has the same binding power upon 
the National Legislature. To make Congress dependent on the Dis- 
trict for authority, is to make it a subject of its authority, restraining the 
exercise of its own discretion, and sinking it into a mere organ of the 
District's will. We proceed to another objection. 

" The southern states would not have ratified the constitution, if they 
had supposed that it gave this poiver." It is a sufficient answer to this 
objection, that the northern states would not have ratified it, if they 
had supposed that it withheld the power. If " suppositions" are to 
take the place of the constitution — coming from both sides, they neu- 
tralize each other. To argue a constitutional question by guessing 
at the "suppositions" that might have been made by the parties to it 
would find small favor in a court of law. But even a desperate shift 
is some easement when sorely pushed. If this question is to be set- 
tled by "suppositions," suppositions shall be forthcoming, and that 
without stint. 

First, then, I affirm that the North ratified the constitution, " sup- 
posing" that slavery had begun to wax old, and would speedily vanish 
away, and especially that the abolition of the slave trade, which by the 
constitution was to be surrendered to Congress after twenty years, 
would plunge it headlong. 

Would the North have adopted the constitution, giving three-fifths 
of the " slave property" a representation, if it had " supposed" that 



25 

the slaves would have increased from half a million to two millions and 
a half by 1838 — and that the census ol' 1840 would give to the slave 
states thirty representatives of " slave property?' 

If they had " supposed" that this representation would have con- 
trolled the legislation of the government, and carried against the 
North every question vital to its interests, would Hamilton, Franklin, 
Sherman, Gerry, Livingston, Langdon, and Rufus King have been 
such madmen, as to sign the constitution, and the Northern States 
such suicides as to ratify it? Every self-preserving instinct would 
have shrieked at such an infatuate immolation. At the adoption 
of the United States constitution, slavery was regarded as a fast waning 
system. This conviction was universal. Washington, Jefferson, 
Henry, Grayson, Tucker, Madison, Wythe, Pendleton, Lee, Blair, 
Mason, Page, Parker, Randolph, Iredell, Spaight, Ramsey, Pinkney, 
Martin, McHenry, Chase, and nearly all the illustrious names south of 
the Potomac, proclaimed it before the sun. A reason urged in the 
convention that formed the United States' constitution, why the word 
slave should not be used in it, was, that when slavery should cease there 
might remain upon the National Charter no record that it had ever 
been. (See speech of Mr. Burrill, of R. I., on the Missouri ques- 
tion.) 

I now proceed to show by testimony, that at the date of the United 
States' constitution, and for several years before and after that period, 
slavery was rapidly on the wane ; that the American Revolution with 
the great events preceding, accompanying, and following it, had 
wrought an immense and almost universal change in the public senti- 
ment of the nation on the subject, powerfully impelling it toward the 
entire abolition of the system — and that it was the general belief that 
measures for its abolition throughout the Union, would be commenced 
by the States generally before the lapse of many years. A great 
mass of testimony establishing this position might be presented, but 
narrow space, and the importance of speedy publication, counsel 
brevity. Let the following proofs suffice. First, a few dates as points 
of observation. 

In 1757, Commissioners from seven colonies met at Albany, resolved 
upon a Union and proposed a plan of general government. In 1765, 
delegates from nine colonies met at New York and sent forth a bill of 
rights. The first general Congress met in 1774. The first Congress 
of the thirteen colonics met in 1775. The revolutionary war com- 
menced in '75. Independence was declared in '76. The articles 
of confederation were adopted by the thirteen states in '77 and '78. In- 
dependence acknowledged in '83. The convention for forming the 
U. S. constitution was held in '87, the state conventions fur consider- 
ing it in '87 and '88. I'he first Congress under the constitution in '89. 

Dr. Rush, of Pennsylvania, one of the signers of the Declaration 
of Independence, in a letter to Granville Simrpc, May 1, 1773, says : 
" A spirit of humanity and religion begins to awaken in several of the 
colonies m favor of the poor negroes. Gjeat events have been brought 
about by small beginnings. Anthony Benhel stood alone a few years 
4 



2G 
ago in opposing negro slavery in Philadelphia, and now three-fouhths 

OF THE PROVINCE AS WELL AS OF THE CITY CRY OUT AGAINST IT." 

[Stuart's Life of Granville Sharpe, p. 21.] 

In the preamble to the act prohibiting the importation of slaves intO' 
Rhode Island, June, 1774, is the following: " Whereas the inhabitants 
of America are generally engaged in the preservation of their own 
rights and hberties, among which that of personal freedom must be con- 
sidered the greatest, and as those who are desirous of enjoying all the 
advantages of liberty themselves, should be willing to extend personal 
liberty to others, therefore," &c. 

October 20, 1774, the Continental Congress passed the following : 
" We, for ourselves and the inhabitants of the several colonies whom 
we re^veaeni, firmly agree and associate under the sacred ties of virtue, 
honor, and love of our country, as follows : 

"2d Article. We will neither import nor purchase any slaves im- 
ported after the first day of December next, after which time we will 
wholly discontinue the slave trade, and we will neither be concerned in 
it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels nor sell our commodities or man- 
ufactures to those who are concerned in it." 

The Continental Congress, in 1775, setting forth the causes and the 
necessity for taking up arms, say : " If it were possible for men who 
exercise their reason to believe that the divine Author of our existence 
intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and 
unbounded power over others," &c. 

In 1776, Dr. Hopkins, then at the head of New-England divines, 
in " An Address to the owners of negro slaves in the American colo- 
nies," says: " The conviction of the unjustifiableness of this practice 
(slavery) has been increasing, and greatly spreading of late, and many 
who have had slaves, have found themselves so unable to justify their 
own conduct in holding them in bondage, as to be induced to set them 
at liberty. ******* Slavery is in 

every instance, wrong, unrighteous, and oppressive — a very great and 
crying sin — there being nothing of the kind equal to it on the face of 
the earth." 

The same year the American Congress issued a solemn manifesto 
to the world. These were its first words : " We hold these truths to 
be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed 
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these 
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Once, these were 
words of power ; now, " a rhetorical flourish." 

The Virginia Gazette of March 19, 1767, in an essay on slavery 
says : " There cannot be in nature, there is not in all history, an instance 
in which every right of man is more fiagrantly violated. Enough I hope 
has been effected to prove that slavery is a violation of justice and 
religion." 

The celebrated Patrick Henry of Virginia, in a letter, Jan. 18, 1773, 
to Robert Pleasants, afterwards president of the Virginia Abolition 
Society, says : " Believe me, I shall honor the Quakers for their noble 
efforts to abolish slavery. It is a debt we owe to the purity o^ our 



27 

religion to show that it is at variance with that law that warrants sla- 
veiy. I exhort you to persevere in so worthy a resolution." 

The Pennsylvania Cin-onicle of Nov. 21, 1768, says : "Let every 
black that shall henceforth be born amongst us be deemed free. One 
step fartlier would be to emancipate the whole race, restoring that 
liberty we have so long unjustly detained from them. Till some step 
of this kind be taken we shall justly be the derision of the whole 
world." 

In 1779, the Continental Congress ordered a pamphlet to be pub- 
lished, entitled, "Observations on the American Revokition," from 
which the following is an extract : " The great principle (of govern- 
ment) is and ever will remain in force, that men arc by nature free ; and 
so long as we have any idea of divine justice, we must associate that of 
human freedom. It is conceded on all hands, that the right to be free 

CAN NEVER BE ALIENATED." 

Extract from the Pennsylvania act for the abolition of slavery, 
passed March 1, 1780 ; * * * " We conceive that it is our duty, 
and we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that free- 
dom to others which has been extended to us. Weaned by a long 
course of experience from those narrow prejudices and partialities we 
had imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevo- 
lence towards men of all conditions and nations : * * * Therefore 
be it enacted, that no child born hereafter be a slave," &c. 

Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written just before the close of 
the Revolutionary War, says : " I think a change already perceptible 
since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is 
abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition mollify- 
ing, and the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, fok a 

TOTAL EMANCIPATION." 

In a letter to Dr. Price, of London, who had just published a 
pamphlet in favor of the abolition of slavery, Mr. Jefferson, then mi- 
nister at Paris, (August 7, 1785,) says: "From the mouth to the 
head of the Chesapeake, ike bulk of the people will approve of your 
parnphlet in theory, and it will find a respectable minority rt-ady to 
adopt it in practice — a minority which, for weight and worth of cha- 
racter, preponderates against the greater number.' Speaking ot Vir- 
ginia, he says : " This is the next state to which we may turn our 
eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice 
and oppression, — a conflict in which the sacred ^ide is gaining 
DAILY RECRUITS. Be not, therefore, discouraged — wiiat you have 
written will do a. great deal of good; and could you still trouble your- 
self with our welfare, no man is more able to give aid to the laboring 
side. The College of William and Mary, since the remodelling of 
its plan, is the place wh^re are collected together all the young men 
of Virginia, under preparation for public life. They are there under 
the direction (most of tliem) of a Mr. Wythe, one oi'the most virtuous 
of characters, and tohose sentiments on the subject of slavery are une- 
quzvocal. I am satisfied, if you could resolve to address an exhorta- 
tion to those young men with all that eloquence of which you arc 



28 

master, that its influence on the future decision of this important ques- 
tion would be great, perhaps decisive. Thus, you see, that so far from 
thinking you have cause to repent of what you have done, / wish you 
to do more, and I wish it on an assurance of its effect." — Jefferson's Pos- 
thumous Works, vol. 1, p. 268. 

In 1786, John Jay drafted and signed a petition to the Legislature 
of New York, on the subject of slavery, beginning with these words '. 
" Your memorialists being deeply affected by the situation of those, 
who, although, free by the laws of God, are held in slavery by the 
laws of the State," &c. This memorial bore also the signatures of 
the celebrated Alexander Hamilton ; Robert R. Livingston, after- 
wards Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the United States, and Chan- 
cellor of the State of New York ; James Duane, Mayor of the City 
of New York, and many others of the most eminent individuals in the 
State. 

In the preamble of an instrument, by which Mr. Jay emancipated a 
slave in 1784, is the following passage : 

" Whereas, the children of men are by nature equally free, and can- 
not, without injustice, be either reduced to or held in slavery." 

In his letter while Minister at Spain, in 1786, he says, speaking, 
of the abolition of slavery : " Till America comes into this measure, 
her prayers to heaven will be impious. I believe God governs the 
world ; and I believe it to be a maxim in his, as in our court, that those 
who ask for equity ought to do it." 

In 1785, the New York Manumission Society was formed. John 
Jay was chosen its first President, and held the office five years. 
Alexander Hamilton was its second President, and after holding the 
office one year, resigned upon his removal to Philadelphia as Secre- 
tary of the United States' Treasury. In 1787, the Pennsylvania Abo- 
lition Society was formed. Benjamin Franklin, warm from the dis- 
cussions of the convention that formed the U. S. constitution, was 
chosen President, and Benjamin Rush Secretary — both signers of 
the Declaration of Independence. In 1789, the Maryland Abolition 
Society was formed. Among its officers were Samuel Chase, Judge 
of the U. S. Supreme Court, and Luther Martin, a member of the con- 
vention that formed the U. S. constitution. In 1790, the Connecticut 
Abolition Society was formed. The first President was Rev. Dr. 
Stiles, President of Yale College, and the Secretary, Simeon Baldwin, 
(late Judge BaVJwin of New Haven.) In 1791, this Society sent a 
memorial to Congress, from which the following is an extract : 

" From a sober conviction of the unrighteousness of slavery, your 
petitioners have long beheld, with grief, our fellow men doomed to per- 
petual bondage, in a country whicii boasts of her freedom. Your pe- 
titioners were led, by motives, we conceive, of general philanthropy, 
to associate ourselves for the protection and assistance of this unfortu- 
nate part of our fellow men ; and, though this Society has been lately 
established, it has now become generally extensive through this state, 
and, we fully believe, embraces, on this subject, the sentiments of a large 
majority of its citizens" 



29 

The same year the Virginia Abolition Society was formed. This 
Society, and the Maryland Society, had auxiliaries in different parts of 
those States. Both societies sent up memorials to Congress. The 
memorial of the Virginia Society is headed — " Tlie memorial of the 
Virginia Society, for promoting the Abolition of Slaver}," &c. The 
following is an extract : 

" Your memorialists, fully believing that slavery is not only an odious 
degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of the most essential 
rights of human nature, and utterly rejmgnant to the precepts of the 
gospel," &c. 

About the same time a Society was formed in New-Jersey. It had 
an acting committee of five members in each county in the State. 
The following is an extract from the preamble to its constitution : 

" It is our boast, that we live under a government, wherein life, lib- 
erty, and the pursuit of happiness, are recognized as the universal rights 
of men. We ahhor that inconsislcnt, illiberal, and interested policy, which 
withholds those rights fro7n an unfortunate and degraded class of our 
fellow creatures.'^ 

Among other distinguished individuals who were efficient officers 
of these Abolition Societies, and delegates from their respective state 
societies, at the annual meetings of the American convention for pro- 
moting the abolition of slavery, were Hon. Uriah Tracy, United 
States' Senator, from Connecticut ; Hon. Zephaniah Swift, Chief Jus- 
tice of the same State ; Hon. Cesar A. Rodney, Attorney General of 
the United States ; Hon. James A. Bayard, United States' Senator, 
from Delaware ; Governor Bloomfield, of New-Jersey ; Hon. Wm. 
Rawle, the late venerable head of the Philadelphia bar ; Dr. Caspar 
Wistar, of Philadelphia ; Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode 
Island ; Messrs. Ridgely, Buchanan, and Wilkinson, of Maryland ; and 
Messrs. Pleasants, McLean, and Anthony, of Virginia. 

In July, 1787, the old Congress passed the celebrated ordinance 
abolishing slavery in the northwestern territory, and declaring that it 
should never thereafter exist there. This ordinance was passed while 
the convention that formed the United States' constitution was in ses- 
sion. At the first session of Congress under tlie constitution, this or- 
dinance . was ratified by a special act. Washington, fresh from the 
discussions of the convention, in which more than forty days had been 
spent in adjusting the question of slavery, gave it his approval. The 
act passed with only one dissenting voice, (that of Mr. Yates, of New 
York,) the South equally with the North avoiring the ftness and ejpr- 
diency of the measure on general considerations, and indicating thus 
early the line of national jiolicy, to be pursued by the United Slates' 
Government on the subject of slavery. 

In the debates in the North Carolina Convention, Mr. Iredell, after- 
ward a Judge of the United States' Supreme Court, said, " When the 
entire abolition of slavery takes place, it will be an event which must 
be pleasing to every generous mind and e\ery friend of human na- 
ture." Mr. Galloway said, " I wish to see this abominable trade put 
an end to. I apprehend the clause (touching the slave trade) means 



30 

to bring forward manumission." Luther Martin, of Maryland, a mem- 
ber of the convention that formed the United States' Constitution, said, 
" We ought to authorize the General Government to make such regu- 
lations as shall be thought rtnost advantageous for the gradual abolition 
of slavery, and the emancipation of the slaves which are already in the 
States." Judge Wilson, of Pennsylvania, one of the framers of the 
constitution, said, in the Pennsylvania convention of '87, [Deb. Pa. 
Con. p. 303, 156 :] " I consider this (the clause relative to the slave 
trade) as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country. 
It will produce the same kind of gradual change which wa^ produced 
in Pennsylvania ; the new States which are to be formed will be under 
the control of Congress in this particular, and slaves will never be in- 
troduced among them. It presents us with the pleasing prospect that 
the rights of mankind will be acknowledged and established throughout 
the Union. Yet the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have 
power to exterminate slavery within our borders." In the Virginia 
convention of '87, Mr. Mason, author of the Virginia constitution, said, 
" The augmentation of slaves weakens- the States, and such a trade is 
diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind. As much as I value a 
union of all the States, I would not admit the Southern Slates, (i. e.. 
South Carolina and Georgia,) into the union, unless they agree to a dis- 
continuance of this disgraceful trade." Mr. Tyler opposed with great 
power the clause prohibiting the abolition of the slave trade till 1808, 
and said, " My earnest desire is, that it shall be handed down to pos- 
terity that I oppose this wicked clause." Mr. Johnson said, " The 
principle of emancipation has begun since the revolution. Let us do 
what we vyill, it will co?ne round." — [Deb. Va. Con. p. 463.] Pat- 
rick Henry, arguing the power of Congress under the United States' 
Constitution to abolish slavery in the States, said, in the same con- 
vention, " Another thing will contribute to bring this event (the 
abolition of slavery) about. Slavery is detested. We feel its fatal 
effects ; we deplore it with all the pity of humanity." Governor 
Randolph said : " They insist that the abolition of slavery will result 
from this Constitution, I hope that there is no one here, who will 
advance an objection so dishonorable to Virginia — I hope that at the 
moment they are securing the rights of their citizens, an objection will 
not be started, that those unfortunate men now held in bondage, by the 
operation of the ge7ieral goverjiment may he mdide fvee V [Deb. Va. Con. 
p. 421. [ * In the Mass. Con. of '88, Judge Dawes said, " Although 
slavery is not smitten by an apoplexy, yet it has received a mortal wound, 
and will die of consumption." — [Deb. Mass. Con. p. 60.] General 
Heath said that, " Slavery was confined to the States now existing, it 
could not be extended. By their ordinance, Congress had declared that 
the new States should be republican States, and have no slavery." — p. 
147. 

In the debate, in the first Congress, February 11th and 12th, 1789, 
on the petitions oi the Society of Friends, and the Pennsylvania Aboli- 
tion Society . Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said, " I cannot help expressing 
the pleasure I feel in finding so considerable a part of the community 



81 

attending to matters of such a momentous concern to the fnture pros- 
perity and happiness of the people of America. I think it my duty, as 
a citizen of the Union, to espouse their cause." 

Mr. Page, of Virginia, (afterwards Governor) — '* Was in favor of 
the commitment : lie hoped that the designs of the respectable 
memorialists would not be stopped at the threshold, in order to pre- 
clude a fair discussion of the prayer of the memorial. He placed 
himself in the case of a slave, and said, that on hearing that Congress 
had refused to listen to the decent suggestions of the respectable part 
of the community, he should infer, that the general govcrnment,_/rom 
which was expected great good would result to every class of citizens, 
had shut their ears against the voice of humanity, and he should des- 
pair of any alleviation of the miseries he and his posterity had in 
prospect ; if any thing could induce him to rebel, it must be a stroke 
like this, impressing on his mind all the horrors of despair. But if he 
was told, that application was made in his behalf, and that Congress 
were willing to hear what could be urged in favor of discouraging the 
practice of importing his fellow-wretches, he would trust in their justice 
and humanity, and icait the decision patiently.''^ 

Mr. Scott of Pennsylvania : " I cannot, for my part, conceive how 
any person ca7i be said to acquire a property in another. I do not know 
how far I might go, if I was one of the judges oftheUnitcd States, and those 
people were to come before me and claim their emancipation, but I am sure I 
would go as far as I could.'' 

Mr. Burke, of South Carolina, said, " He saw the disposition of the 
House, and he feared it would be referi'ed to a committee, maugre all 
their opposition." 

Mr. Baldwin of Georgia said that the clause in the U. S. Constitution 
relating to direct taxes " was intended to prevent Congress from laving 
any special tax upon negro slaves, as they might, in this way, so burthen 
the possessors of them, as to induce a general emancipation." 

Mr. Smith of South Carolina, said, " That on entering into this 
government, they (South Carolina and Georgia) apprehended that the 
other states, * * * would, from motives of humanity and benevolence, 
be led to vote for a general emancipation." 

In the debate, at the same session. May 13th, 1789, on the petition 
of the society of Friends respecting the slave trade, Mr. Parker, of 
Virginia, said, " He hoped Congress would do all that lay in their 
power to restore to human nature its inherent privileges. The incon- 
sistency in our principles, with which we are justly charged should be 
done away. 

Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, said, " It was the fashion of the day 
TO favor the liberty of the slaves. * * * * * WillVir- 
ginia set her negroes free ? When this practice comes to be tried, then 
the sound of liberty will lose those charms which make it grateful to the 
ravished ear." 

Mr. Madison of Virginia, — " The dictates of humanity, tlie princi- 
ples of the people, the national safety and happiness, and prudi'iit policy, 
require it of us. ******* I conceive the constitution 



32 

in this particular was formed in order that the Government, whilst it 
was restrained from laying a total proliibition, might be able to give 
some testimony of the sense of America, with respect to the African 
trade. * * * * * * It is to be hoped, that by expressing a 
national disapprobation of this trade, we may destroy it, and save our- 
selves from reproaches, and our posterity the imbecility ever at- 
tendant ON A COUNTRY FILLED WITH SLAVES." 

Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, said, " he highly commended the 
part the Society of Friends had taken ; it was the cause of humanity 
they had interested themselves in." — Cong. Reg. v. 1, p. 308 — 12. 

A writer in the " Gazette of the Unites States," Feb. 20th, 1790, 
(then the government paper,) who opposes the abolition of slavery, 
and avows himself a slaveholder, says, " I have seen in the papers ac- 
counts of large associations, and applications to Government for the 
abolition of slavery. Religion, humanity, and the generosity natural to 
a free people, are the noble principles which dictate those measures. 
Such motives command respect, and are above any eulogium words 
can bestow." 

In the convention that formed the constitution of Kentucky in 
1790, the effort to prohibit slavery was nearly successful. A decided 
majority of that body would undoubtedly have voted for its exclusion, 
but for the great efforts and influence of two large slaveholders — men 
of commanding talents and sway — Messrs. Breckenridgo and Nicho- 
las. The following extract from a speech made in that convention 
by a member of it, Mr. Rice a native Virginian, is a specimen of 
theyree discussion that prevailed on that " delicate subject." Said 
Mr. Rice : " I do a man greater injury, when I deprive him of his 
liberty, than when I deprive him of liis property. It is vain for me 
to plead that I have the sanction of law ; for this makes the injury 
the greater — it arms the community against him, and makes his case 
desperate. The owners of such slaves then are licensed robbers, and 
not the just proprietors of what they claim. Freeing them is not de- 
priving them of property, but restoring it to the right owner. The mas- 
ter is the enemy of the slave ; he has made open war upon him, and is 
DAILY CARRYING IT ON in Unremitted efforts. Can any one imagine, 
then, that the slave is indebted to his master, and bound to serve him 1 
Whence can the obligation arise ? What is it founded upon ? What 
is my duty to an enemy that is carrying on war against me ? I do not 
deny, but in some circumstances, it is the duty of the slave to serve ; 
but it is a duty he owes himself, and not his master." 

President Edwards, the younger, said, in a sermon preached before 
the Connecticut Abolition Society, Sept. 15, 1791 : " Thirty years ago, 
scarcely a man in this country thought either the slave trade or the 
slavery of negroes to be wrong ; but now how many and able advocates 
in private life, in our legislatures, in Congress, have appeai-ed, and 
have openly and irrefragably pleaded the rights of humanity in this as 
well as other instances ? And if we judge of the future by the past, 
within fifty years from this time, it will be as shameful for a man to hold a 
negro slave, as to be guilty of common robbery or theft.'''' 



33 

in 1794, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church adopted 
its " Scripture proofs," notes, and comments. Among these was the 
following : 

"1 Tim. i. 10. The law is made for manstealers. Thfe crime 
among the Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment. 
Exodus xxi. 16. And the apostle here classes them with sinners of 
the first rank. The word he uses, in its original import comprehends 
all who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into slave r}% 
or in retaining them in it. Stealers of men are all those who bring olT 
slaves or freemen, and keep, sell, or buy them." 

In 1794, Dr. Rush declared : " Domestic slavery is repugnant to the 
principles of Christianity. It prostrates every benevolent and just 
principle of action in the human heart. It is rebellion against the 
authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent 
and efficacy of the death of a common Saviour. It is an usurpation ol 
the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe, who has solemn- 
ly claimed an exclusive property in the souLs of men." 

In 1795, Mr. Fiske, then an officer of Dartmouth College, afterward 
a Judge in Tennessee, said, in an oration published that year, speaking 
of slaves : " I steadfastly maintain, that we must bring them to an equal 
standing, in point of privileges, iciihthe whites.' They must enjoy all 
the rights belonging to human nature." 

When the petition on the abolition of the slave trade was under dis- 
cussion in the Congress of '89, Mr. Brown, of North Carolina, said, 
" The emancipation of the slaves 7vill be effected in timt; ; it ought to be 
a gradual business, but he hoped that Congress would not precipitate 
it to the great injury gf the southern States." Mr. Hartley, of PennsyU 
vania, said, in the same debate, " He was not a little surjmsed to hear the 
cause of slavery advocated in that house." Washington, in a letter to 
Sir John Sinclair, says, " There are, in Pennsylvania, laws for the 
gradual abolition of slavery which neither Maryland nor Virginia have 
at present, but which nothing is more certain tlian that they must have, 
and at a period not remote." In 1782, Virginia passed her celebrated 
marrumission act. Within nine years from that time nearly eleven 
thousand slaves were voluntarily emancipated by their masters. [Judge 
Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 72.] In 1787, Maryland 
passed an act legalizing manumission. Mr. Dorscy, of Maryland, in 
a speech in Congress, December 27th, 1826, speaking of manumission^ 
under that act, said, that " The progress of emancipation was astonishing, 
the State became crowded with a free black population." 

The celebrated William Pinkney, in a speech before the Maryland 
House of Delegates, in 1789, on the emancipation of slaves, said, "Sir, 
by the eternal principles of natural justice, no Jiiaster in the state has a 
right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour. . . Arc we ap- 
prehensive that these men will become more dangerous by becoming 
freemen? Are we alarmed, lest by being admitted into the enjoyment 
of civil rights, they will be inspired with a deadly enmity against the 
rights of others ? Strange, unaccountable paradox ! How much more 
5 



34 

rational would It be, to argue that the natural enemy of the privileges 
of a freeman, is he who is robbed of them himself! 

Hon. James Campbell, in an address before the Pennsylvania So- 
ciety of Cincinnati, July 4, 1787, said, " Our separation from 
Great Britain has extended the empire of humanity. I'he time ?'* not 
far distant when our sister states, in imitation of our example, shall 
turn their vassals into freemen." The Convention that formed the 
United States' constitution being then in session, attended on the de- 
livery of tliis oration with General Washington at their head. 

A Baltimore paper of September 8th, 1780, contains the following 
notice of Major General Gates : " A few days ago passed through 
this town the Hon. General Gates and lady. The General, previous 
to leaving Virginia, summoned his numerous family of slaves about 
him, and amidst their tears of affection and gratitude, gave them their 

FREEDOM." 

In 1791, the university of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred 
upon Granville Sharpe the degree of Doctor of Laws. Sharpe was at 
that time the acknowledged head of British abolitionists. His in- 
defatigable exertions, prosecuted for years in the case of Somerset, 
procured that memorable d.ecision in the Court of King's Bench, which, 
settled the principle that no slave could be held in England. He was 
most uncompromising in b.is opposition to slavery, and for twenty 
years previous he liad spoken, written, and accomplished more against 
it than any man living. 

In the " Memoirs of the Revolutionary War in the Southern Depart- 
ment," by Gen. Lee, of Va., Commandant of the Partizan Legion, is 
the following : " The Constitution of the United States, adopted lately 
with so much difficulty, has effectually provided against this evil (by im- 
portation) after a few years. It is much to be lamented that having 
done so much in tliis way, a provisian had not been made for the gradual 
abolition of slavery.''^ — pp. 233, 4. 

Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, Judge of the Supreme Court of that state,, 
and professor of law in the University of William and Mary, addressed 
a letter to the General Assembly of that state, in 1796, urging the abo- 
lition of slavery, from which the following is an extract. Speaking 
of the slaves in Virginia, he says : " Should we not, at the time of the 
revolution, have broken their fetters ? Is it not our duty to embrace the 
first moment of constitutional health and vigor to efiectuate so desirable 
an object, and to remove from us a stigma with which our enemies will 
never fail to upbraid us, nor our consciences to reproach us ?" 

Mr. Faulkner, in a speech before the Virginia House of Delegates, 
Jan. 20, 1832, said : " The idea of a gradual emancipation and removal 
of the slaves from this commonwealth, is coeval with the declaration of 
our independence from the British yoke. When Virginia stood sus- 
tained in her legislation by the pure and philosophic intellect of Pendle- 
ton, by the patriotism of Mason and Lee, by the searching vigor and 
sagacity of Wythe, and by the all-embracing, all-comprehensive genius 
of Thomas Jefferson ! Sir, it was a committee composed of those five 
illustrious men, who, in 1777, subntitted to the general assembly of this 



35 

state, then in session, u plan for the gradual emancipation of the alaves of 
this cojumoniuealth.'" 

Hon. Benjamin Watlvins Leigh, lute United States' senator from 
Virginia, in liis letters to the people of Virginia, in 183U, signed Appo- 
mattox, p. 43, says : " I thought, till very lately, that it was known to 
every body that during the revolution, and for many years after, the aho- 
lUioti of slavery was a favorite tojnc with many of onr ablest statesmen, 
who entertained, with respect, all the schemes which wisdom or inge- 
nuity could suggest for accomplishing the object. Mr. Wytlu', to the 
day of his death, was for a simple abolition, considering the objection to 
color as founded inprej^idice. By degrees, all projects of the kind were 
abandoned. Mr. Jefferson retmned his opinion, and now we have these 
projects revived." 

Governor Barbour, of Virginia, in his speech in the U. S. Senate, on 
the Missouri question, Jan. 1820, said : " We are asked why has Vir- 
ginia changed her policy in reference to slavery ? That the sentiments 
of our most distinguished men, for tliirty years entirely corresponded 
with the course which the i'riends of the restriction (of slavery in Mis- 
souri) now advocated ; and that the Virginia delegation, one of whom 
was the late President of the United States, voted lor the restriction (of 
slavery) in the northwestern territory, and that Mr. Jefferson has de- 
lineated a gloomy picture of the baneful effects of slavery. When it is 
recollected that the Notes of Mr. Jefferson were written during the pro- 
gress of the revolution, it is no matter of surprise that the writer should 
have imbibed a large portion of that enthusiasm which such an occasion 
was so well calculated to produce. As to the consent of the Virginia 
delegation to the restriction in question, whether the result of a dispo- 
sition to restrain the slave-trade indirectly, or the influence of that en- 
thusiasm to which I have just alluded, * * * * it is not now 
important to decide. We have witnessed its effects. The liberahty 
of Virginia, or, as the result may prove, her folly, which submitted to, 
or, if you will, proposed this mect^ure (abolition of slavery in the N. W. 
territory) has eventuated in effects which speak a monitory lesson. 
How ?> the representation from this quarter on the present question /" 

Mr. Imlay, m his early history of Kentucky, p. 185, says : " We 
have disgraced the fair face of humanity, and trampled upon the sacred 
privileges of man, at the very moment that we were exclaiming against 
the tyranny of your (the English) ministry. But in contending for 
the birthright of freedom, we have learned to feel for the bandage of 
others, and in the libations we offer to the goddess of liberty, we con- 
template an emancipation of the slaves of this country, as honorable to 
themselves as it will be glorious to us." 

In the debate in Congress, Jan. 20, 1806, on Mr. Sloan's motion to 
lay a tax on the importation of slaves, Mr. Clark of Va. said : *• He 
was no advocate for a system of slavery." Mr. Marion, of S. Caroli- 
na, said : " He never had purchased, nor should he ever purchase a 
slave." Mr. Southard said : " Not revenue, but an (expression of the 
national sentiment is the principal object." Mr. Smilie — '• I rejoice 
that the word (slave) is not in the constitution ; its not being there does 



36 

honor to the worthies who would not suffer it to become a part of it.'^ 
Mr. Alston, of N. Carolina — " In two years we shall have the power 
to prohibit the trade altogether. Then this House will be unaninrious. 
No one will abject to our exercising our full constitutional powers.'^ 
National Intelligencer, Jan. 24, 1806. 

These witnesses need no vouchers to entitle them to credit ; nor 
their testimony commentS|to make it intelligible — their name? are their 
endorsers, and their strong words their own interpreters. ' We waive 
all comments. Our readers are of age. Whosoever hath ears to hear, 
let him hear. And whosoever will not hear the fathers of the revolu- 
tion, the founders of the «'overnment, its chief magistrates, judges, le- 
gislators and sages, who dared and perilled all under the burdens, and 
in the heat of the day that tried men's souls — then " neither will he be 
persuaded though they rqse from the dead." 

Some of the points established by this testimony are — The univ,ersal 
expectation that Congress, state legislatures, seminaries of learning, 
churches, ministers of religion, and public sentiment widely embpdied 
in abolition societies, would act against slavery, calling forth the moral 
sense of the nation, and creating a power of opinion that would abolish 
the system throughout the Union. In a word, that free speech and a 
free press would be wielded against it wifejiout ceasing and without re- 
striction. Full well did the South know, riot only that the national 
government would probably legislate against slavery wherever the con- 
stitution placed it within its reach, but she knew also that Congress had 
already marked out the hiie of national policy to be pursued on the sub- 
ject — had committed itself before the world to a course of action agauist 
slavery, wherever she could move upon it without encountering a con- 
flicting-jurisdiction — that the nation had established by solemn ordinance 
a memorable precedent for subsequent action, by abolishing slavery in 
the northwest territory, and by declaring that it should never thence- 
forward exist there ; and this too, as soon as by cession of Virginia 
and other states, the terr-itory came under congressional control. The 
South knew also that the sixth article in the ordinance prohibiting sla- 
very, was first proposed by the largest %laveholdirig state in • the con- 
federacy — that in the Congress of '84, Mr. Jefferson, as chairman of 
the committee on the N. W. territory, reported a resolution abolishing 
slavery thev'e — that the chairman of the committee that reported the 
ordinance of '87 was also a slaveholder — that the ordinance was erlg,ct- 
ed by Congress during the session of the convention that formed the 
United States' Constitution — that the provisions of the ordinance were, • 
both while in prospect and when under discussion, matters of universal 
notoriety and approval with all parties, and when finally passed, re- 
. ceivcd the vote of every member of Congress from each of the slavcholding 
states. The South also had every reason for belieying that the first 
Congress under the constitution would ratfy that ordinqjice — as it did 
unanimously. , • ' . 

A crowd of reflections, suggested by the preceding testimony,. ^ 
presses for utterance. The right of petition ravished and trampled by 
its constitutional guardiai^, and insult and defiance hurled in tlie facea' 



37 

of the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE while calmly remonstrating with their SEk- 
VANTS for violence committed on the nation's charter emd their own 
dearest rights ! Added to this " the right of peaceably assemhling" 
violently wrested — the rights of minorities, rights no longer — free 
speech struck dumb — free men outlawed and murdered — i'ree presses 
cast into the streets and their fragments strewed_ witli shoutings, or 
flourished in triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as jroud 
mementos of prostrate la.w ! The spirit and power of our fathers, 
where are they ? Their deep homage always and every where ren- 
dered to FREE THOUGHT, \vith its inseparable signs — -free speech and a 
free press — their reverence for justice, liberty, r7^/tts and all-pervading 
law, wliore are they ? , \ 

But we tiirn from these considerations — though the times on ^hiclj^, 
we have fallen, and those toward which we are borne with headlong 
haste, call for their discussion as with the voices of departing life— and 
proceed to topics relevant to the argument before us. 

The seventh article of the amendments to the constitution is alleged 
to withhold from Congress the power to aboHsh -slavery in the District. 
, " No person slmll be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due 
process of law." All the eiaves in the District have been " deprived 
of liberty" by legislative acts. Now, these legislative acts " depriv- . 
ing" them "of hberty," were either " due process of law," or they 
were not. If they were, then a legislative act, taking from the master^ 
that "property'' which is the identical "liberty" previously tal^en from 
the slave, w(5uld be " due .process of law" also, and of course a consti- 
, tutional act ; but if the legislative acts "depriving" them of "liberty" 
were not " due process of law," then the slaves were deprived of lib- 
erty unconstitutionally, and these acts a.re voicle In that case the con- 
stitution emancipates them. 

If the objector re{)ly, by saying that the import of the phrase "due 
process of Mw," is judicial process solely, it is granted, and that fact is 
our rejoinder ; '§pr no slave in the District has bQcn deprived of his 
liberty by " a judicial process," or, in other words, by " due process 
of law 5" consequently, upon the objector's own admission, every slave 
ift.the District has been deprived of liberty unconstitutionally, and is 
■ therei^ore free by the cmstitut ion. This is asserted only of the slaves 
under the " exclusive legislation" of Congress. 

The last clause of the article under consideration is quoted for the 
same purpose : " Nor shall private property be taken for public use 
without just compensation'." Each of the state constitutions has a 
■clause of similar purport. The abolition of slavery in the District by _• 
Congress, would not, as we shall presently show, violate; this clause , 
either directly or by imphcation. Granting for argument's sake, that 
slaves are "private property," and that to emancipate them, would be 
to "'take private property" for " public use," the objector admits the 
power of Congress to do this, provided it will do something else, that 
is, pay for them. Thus, instead of denying the power, the, objector not 
only admits, Ijut affirms it, as the ground of the inference that compen- 
sation must accompany it. So far. from disproving tlie existence of 



86 

owe power, he assei'ts the existence of two— one, the power to take the 
slaves from their masters, the other, the power to take the property of 
the United States to pay for them. 

If Congress cannot constitutionally impair the right of private 
property, or take it without compensation, it cannot constitutionally, 
legalize the perpetration of such acts, by others, nor protect those who 
commit them. Does the power to rob a man of his earnings, rob the 
earner of his right to them ? Who has a better right to the product 
than the producer? — to the interest, than the owner of X\\q principal 1 — 
to the hands and arms, than he from whose shoulders they swing ? — to the 
body and soul, than he whose they are ? Congress not only impairs 
but annihilates the right of private property, while it withholds from the 
slaves of the District their title to themselves. What ! Congress power- 
less to protect a man's right to himself, when it can make inviolable 
the right to a dog! But, waiving this, I deny that the abolition of 
slavery in the District would violate this clause. What does the clause 
prohibit ? The " taking" of " private property" for " public use." 
Suppose Congress should emancipate the slaves in the District, what 
would it " take ?" Nothing. What would it hold 1 Nothing. What 
would it put to " public use ?" Nothing. Instead of taking '• private 
property," Congress, by abolishing slavery, would saj " private property 
shall not he taken ; and those who have been robbed of it already, shall 
be kept out of it no longer ; and every man's right to his own body 
shall be protected." True, Congress may not arbitrarily take property, 
as property, from one man and give it to another — and in the abolition 
of slavery no such thing is done. A legislative act changes the condi- 
tion o{ the slave — makes him his own proprietor, instead of the property 
of another. It determines a question of original right between two 
classes of persons — doing an act of justice to one, and restraining the 
other from acts of injustice ; or, in other words, preventing one from 
robbing the other, by granting to the injured party the protection of just 
and equitable laws. 

Congress, by an act of abolition, would change the condition of seven 
thousand " persons" in the District, but would " take" nothing. To 
construe this provision so as to enable the citizens of the District to 
hold as property, and in perpetuity, whatever they please, or to hold it 
as property in all circumstances — all necessity, public welfare, and the 
will and power of the government to the contrary notwithstanding — is 
a total perversion of its whole intent. The design of the provision, was 
to throw up a barrier against Governmental aggrandizement. The 
right to " take property" for State uses is one thing ; — the right so to 
adjust the tenures by which property is held, that each may have his 
own secured to him, is another thing, and clearly within the scope of 
legislation. Besides, if Congress were to " take" the slaves in the 
District, it would be adopting, not abolishing slavery — becoming a 
slaveholder itself, instead of requiring others to be such no longer. 
The clause in question, prohibits the " taking" of individual property 
for public use, to be employed or disposed of as property for govern- 
mental purposes. Congress, by abolishing slavery in the District, 



39 

would do no such thing. It would merely change the condition of that 
which has been recognized as a qualified property by congressional acts, 
though previously declared " persons" by the constitution. More than 
this is done continually by Congress and every other Legislature. 
Property the most absolute and unqualified, is annihilated by legislative 
acts. The embargo and non-intercourse act, levelled at a stroke a 
forest of shipping, and sunk millions of capital. To say nothing of the 
power of Congress to take hundreds of millions from the "people by di- 
rect taxation, who doubts its power to abolish at once the whole tariff 
system, change the seat of Government, arrest the progress of national 
works, prohibit any branch of commerce with the Indian tribes or with 
foreign nations, change the locality of forts, arsenals, magazines and 
dock yards ; abolish the Post Office system, and the privilege of patents 
and copyrights 1 By such acts Congress might, in the exercise of its 
acknowledged powers, annihilate property to an incalculable amount, 
and that without becoming liable to claims for compensation. 

Finally, this clause prohibits the taking for public use of " property." 
The constitution of the United States does not recognize slaves as 
" property" any where, and it does not recognize them in any sense in 
the District of Columbia. All allusions to them in the constitution 
recognize them as " persons." Every reference to them joints solely 
to the element of personality ; and thus, by the strongest implica- 
tion, declares that the constitution knoivs them only as " persons," 
and will not recognize them in an)'' other light. If they escape into 
free States, the constitution authorizes their being taken back. But 
how ? Not as the property of an " owner," but as " persons ;" and 
the peculiarity of the expression is a marked recognition of their per- 
sonality — a refusal to recognize them as chattels — " persons held to 
service." Are oxeii ^'held to service ?" That can be affirmed only of 
persons. Again, slaves give political power as "persons." The 
constitution, in settling the principle of representation, re(juires their 
enumeration in the census. How ? As property 1 Then why not 
include race horses and game cocks ? Slaves, like other inhabitants, 
are enumerated as " persons." So by the constitution, the government 
was pledged to non-interference with " the migration or importation of 
such persons" as the States might think proper to admit until 1808, 
and authorized the laying of a tax on each " person" so admitted. 
Further, slaves are recognized as persons by the exaction of their alle- 
giance to the government. For offences against the government slaves 
are tried as persons ; as persons they are entitled to counsel fur their 
defence, to the rules of evidence, and to " due process of law," and 
as persons they are punished. True, they are loaded with cruel disa- 
bilities in courts of law, such as greatly obstruct and often inevitably 
defeat the ends of justice, yet they are still recognized as persons. 
Even in the legislation of Congress, and in the diplomacy of the gene- 
ral government, notwithstanding the frequent and wide departures 
from the integrity of the constitution on this subject, slaves are not 
recognized as property without qualification. Congress has always 
refused to grant compensation for slaves killed or taken by the enemy, 



.40- 

even when these slaves had been impressed into the Uni^d States' 
service. In half a score of cases since the last war, Congress has 
rejected such applications for compensation. Besides, both in 
Congressional acts, and in our national diplomacy, slaves and property 
are not used as convertible terms. When' mentioned in treaties a.nd 
state papers it is in such a way as to distinguish them from mere pro- 
perty, and generally by a recognition of their personality. In the in- 
variable recognition of slaves as persons, the United States' constitu- 
tion caught the mantle of the glorious Declaration, and most worthily 
wears it. It recognizes all human beings as " men," " persons,''' and 
thus as "equals." In the original ' draff ' of the Declaration, as! it 
came from the hand of Jefferson, it is alleged that Great Britain hkd 
" waged a crtiel war against human nature itself, violating its most sa- 
cred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, carry- 
ing them into slavery, * * determined to keep up a market where 
MEN should be bought and sold,'"'— thus disdaining to make the charter 
of freedom a warrant for the arrest of men, that they might be shorn 
both of liberty and humanity. 

The celebrated Roger Sherman, one of the committee of five appoint- 
ed to draft the Declaration of Independence, and a member of the con- 
vention that "formed the United States' constitution, said, in the first 
Congress after its adoption : " The constitution does not consider these 
persons, (slaves,) as a species of property.^'' — [Lloyd's Cong. Reg. 
V. 1, p. 313.] That the United States' Constitution does not mjake 
slaves " property," is shown in the fact, that no person, either as a citi- 
zen of the United States, or by having his domicile within the United 
States'' government, can hold slaves. He can hold them only by deri- 
ving his power from state laws, or from the laws of Congress, if he 
hold slaves within the District. But no person: resident within the 
United States' jurisdiction, and not within the District, nor within a 
state whose laws support slavery, nor " held to service " under the 
laws of such a state or district, having escaped therefrom, can he held as 
a slave. 

Men can hold property under the United States' government though 
residing beyond the bounds of any state, district, or territory. An in- 
habitant of the Iowa Territory can hold property there under the laws 
of the United States, but he cannot hold slaves there under the 
United States' laws, nor by virtue of the United States' Constitution, ' 
nor upon the ground of his United States' citizenship, nor by having 
his domicile within the United States' jurisdiction. The constitution 
no where recognizes the right to " slave property," hut merely the fact 
that the states have jurisdiction each in its oumjimits, and that there 
are certain " persons" ivithin their jurisdictions " held to service" hy 
their own laios. 

Finally, in the clause under consideration " private property " 
is not to be taken "without just compensation." "Just!" If jus- 
tice is to be appealed to in determining the amount of compensa- 
tion, let her determine the grounds also. If it be her province to 
say how much compensation is " just," it is hers to say whether any 



41 

is "just," — whether the slave is "just" property at all, rather than a 
^^ person.'"' Tlien, it' justice adjudges the slave to be " private prop- 
erty," it adjudges him to be his own property, since the right to one's 
self is the first right — the source of all others — the original stock by 
which they are accumulated — the principal, of which they arfe the in- 
terest. And since the slave's " private property " has been "taken," 
and since "compensation" is impossible — there being no equivalent for 
one's self — the least that can be done is to restore to him his original 
private property. 

Having shown that in abolishing slavery, " property " would not be 
"taken for public use," it may be added that, in those states where sla- 
very has been abolished by law, no claim for compensation has been al- 
lowed. Indeed the manifest absurdity of demanding it seems to have 
quite forestalled the setting up oi s\xc\\ a claim. 

The abolition of slavery in the District instead of being a legisla- 
tive anomaly, would proceed upon the principles of every day legisla- 
tion. It has been shown already, that the United States' Constitution 
does not recognize slaves as " property." Yet ordinary legislation is 
full of precedents, showing that even absolute property is in many re- 
spects wholly subject to legislation. The repeal of the law of entail- 
ments — all those acts that control the alienation of property, its dispo- 
sal by will, its passing to heirs by descent, with the question, who shall 
be heirs, and what shall be the rule of distribution among them, or 
whether property shall be transmitted at all by descent, rather than 
escheat to the estate — these, with statutes of limitation, and various oth- 
er classes of legislative acts, serve to illustrate the acknowledged 
scope of the law-making power, even where property is in every sense 
absolute. Persons whose property is thus affected by public laws, 
receive from the government no compensation for their losses, unless 
the state has been put in possession of the property taken from 
them. 

The preamble of the United States' Constitution declares it to be 
a fundamental object of the organization of the government " to estab- 
lish JUSTICE." Has Congress no poiver to do that for which it was 
made the depository of power? (Cannot the United States' Govern- 
ment fulfil the purpose for which it was brought into being 1 

To abolish slavery, is to take from no rightful owner his property; 
but to " establish justice " between two parties. To emancipate the 
slave, is to "establish justice" between him and his master — to throw 
around the person, character, conscience, liberty, and domestic 
relations of the one, the same law that secures and blesses the other. 
In other words, to prevent by legal restraints one class of men from seiz- 
ing upon another class, and robbing them at pleasure of tlicir earnings, 
their time, their liberty, their kindred, and the very use and owner- 
ship of their own persons. Finally, to abolish slavery is to proclaim 
and enact that innocence and helpl(;ssness — now free plunder — are 
entitled to legal protection ; and that power, avarice, and lust, shall no 
longer revel upon their spoils under the license, and by the ministra- 
tion of law/ Congress, by possessing "exclusive legislation in all 
6 



42 

cases whatsoever," has a general protective power for all the inhabi- 
tants of the District. If it has no power to protect one man in the Dis- 
trict it has none to protect another — none to protect any — and if it can 
protect one man and is bound to do it, it can protect every man — and is 
hound to do it. All admit the power of Congress to protect the masters 
in the District against their slaves. What part of the constitution gives 
the power ? The clause so often quoted, — " })ower of legislation in all 
cases whatsoever," equally in the " case"" of defending blacks against 
whites, as in that of defending whites against blades. The power 
is also conferred by Art. 1, Sec. 8, clause 15 — " Congress shall have 
power to suppress insurrections" — a power to protect, as well blacks 
against whites, as whites against blacks. If the constitution gives 
power to protect one class against the other, it gives power to protect 
either against the other. Suppose the blacks in the District should 
seize the whites, drive them into the fields and kitchens, force them to 
work without pay, flog them, imprison them, and sell them at their 
pleasure, where would Congress find power to restrain such acts ? 
Answer : a general power in the clause so often cited, and an express 
one in that cited above — " Congress shall have power to suppress in- 
surrections." So much for a supposed case. Here follows a real one. 
The whites in the District are perpetrating these identical acts upon 
seven thousand blacks daih\ That Congress has power to restrain 
these acts in one case, all assert, and in so doing they assert the power 
"in all cases whatsoever." For the grant of power to suppress insur- 
rections, is an uncojiditional grant, not hampered by provisos as to the 
color, shape, size, sex, language, creed, or condition of the insurgents. 
Congress derives its power to suppress this actual insurrection, from 
the same source whence it derived its power to suppress the same acts 
in the case supposed. If one case is an insurrection, the other is. The 
acts in both are the same ; the actors only are different. In the one 
case, ignorant and degraded — goaded by the memory of the past, stung 
by the present, and driven to desperation by the fearful lookuig for of 
wrongs for ever to come. In the other, enlightened into the nature of 
rights, the principles of justice, and the dictates of tl e law of love, un- 
provoked by wrongs, with cool deliberation, and by system, they per- 
petrate these acts upon those to whom they owe unnumbered obliga- 
tions for 2vhole lives of unrequited service. On which side may pallia- 
tion be pleaded, and which pai-ty may most reasonably claim an abate- 
ment of the rigors of law ? If Congress has power to suppress such 
acts at all, it has power to suppress them in all. 

It has been shown already that allegiance is exacted of the slave. Is 
the gove -nment of the United States unable to grant protection where 
it exacts allegiance ? It is an axiom of the civilized world, and a 
maxim even with savages, that allegiance and protection are reciprocal 
and correlative. Are principles powerless with us which exact homage 
of barbarians ? Protection is the constitutional right of every human 
being under the exclusive legislation of Congress who has not forfeited it 
hy crime. 

In conclusion, I argue the power of Congress to abolish slavery ia 



43 

ihe District, from Art. 1, sec. 8, clause 1, of tlie constitution; " Con- 
gx'ess shall have power to provide for the coininou defence and the 
general welfare of the United States." Has the government of the 
United States no power under this grant to legislate within its own 
exclusive jurisdiction on subjects that vitally aflect its interest? Suppose 
the slaves in the district should rise upon their masters, and the United 
States' government, in quelling the insurrection, should kill any num- 
ber of them. Could their masters claim compensation of the govern- 
ment ? Manifestly not ; even though no proof existed that the partic- 
ular slaves killed were insurgents. This was precisely the point at 
issue between those masters, whose slaves were killed by the State 
troops at the time of the Southampton insurrection, and the Virginia 
Legislature : no evidence was brought to show that the slaves killed by 
the troops were insurgents ; yet tiic Virginia Legislature decified that 
their masters were 7iot. entitled to compensation. They proceeded on 
the sound principle, that the government may in self-j)rotection destroy 
the claim of its subjects even to that which has been recognized as 
property by its o\vn acts. If in providing for the common delence, the 
United States' government, in the case sujjposed, would liave power to 
destroy slaves both as property and persons, it surely might stop Juilf- 
way, destroy them as property while it legalized their existence as i)er- 
sons, and thus provided for the common defence by giving them a 
personal and powerful interest in the government, and securing their 
strength for its defence. 

Like other Legislatures, Congress has power to abate nuisances — to 
remove or tear down unsafe buildings — to destroy infected cargoes — to 
lay injunctions upon manufactories injurious to the public health — and 
thus to " provide for the common defence and general welfare" by de- 
stroying individual property, when such property puts in jeopardy the 
public weal. 

G^ranting, for argument's sake, that slaves are " property" in the 
District of Columbia — if Congress has a right to annihilate property 
there when the public safety requires it, it may annihilate its existence 
as property when the public safety requires it, especially if it transform 
into a protection and defence that which as property perilled the pubhc 
interests. In the District of Columbia there are, besides the United 
States' Capitol, the President's house, the national offices, and arcliives 
of the Departments of State, Treasury, War, and Navy, the General 
Post-office, and Patent office. It is also the residence of the President, of 
all the highest officers of the government, of both houses of Congress, and 
of all the foreign ambassadors. In this same District there are also seven 
thousand slaves. Jefferson, in his Notes on Va. p. 241, says of slavery, 
that " the State permitting one half of its citizens to trample on the 
rights of the other, transfjrms them into enemies ;" and Richard Henry 
Lee, in the Va. House of Burgesses in 1758, declared that to those who 
\\e\dx\\Gm,'^^ slaves must he natural enemies J' ^ Is Congress so impotent 
that it cannot exercise that right pronounced both by municipal and national 
law, the most sacred and universal — therightof self-presi-rvation andde- 
fence ? Is it shut up to the necessity of keeping seven thousand *' enemies" in 



44 

the heart of the nation's citadel ? Does the iron fiat of the constitution 
doom it to such imbecility that it cannot arrest the process that made 
them " enemies," and still goads to deadlier hate by fiery trials, and 
day by day adds others to their number 1 Is this providing for the 
common defence and general welfare ? If to rob men of rights excites 
their hate, freely to restore them and make amends, will win their love. 

By emancipating the slaves in the District, the government of the 
United States would disband an army of " enemies," and enlist " for 
the common defence and general welfare," a body guard o( friends 
seven thousand strong. In the last war, a handful of British soldiers 
sacked Washington city, burned the capitol, the President's house, and 
the national oflices and archives ; and no marvel, for thousands of the 
inhabitants of the District had been "transformed into enemies." 
Would they beat back invasion 1 If the national government had exer- 
cised its constitutional "power to provide for the common defence and to 
promote the general welfare," by turning those " enemies" into friends, 
then, instead of a hostile ambush lurking in every thicket inviting assault, 
and secret foes in every house paralyzing defence, an army of allies 
would have rallied in the hour of her calamity, and shouted defiance 
from their munitions of rocks ; whilst the banner of the republic, then 
trampled in dust, would have floated securely over freemen exulting 
amidst bulwarks of strength. 

To show that Congress can abolish slavery in the District, under the 
grant of power " to provide for the common defence and to promote 
the general welfare," I quote an extract from a speech of Mr. Madison, 
of Va., in the first Congress under the constitution, May 13, 1789. 
Speaking of the abolition of the slave trade, Mr. Madison says : " I 
should venture to say it is as much for the interests of Georgia and South 
Carolina, as of any state in the union. Every addition they receive to 
their number of slaves tends to weaken them, and renders them less 
capable of self-defence. In case of hostilities with foreign nations, 
they will be the means of inviting attack instead of repelling invasion. 
It is a necessary duty of the general government to protect every part of 
the empire against danger, as well internal as external. Every thing, 
therefore, tohich tends to increase this danger, though it may he a local affair, 
yet if it involves national expense or safety, it becomes of concern to every 
part of the union, and is a proper subject for the consideration of those 
charged loith the general administration, of the government." Cong. Reg. 
vol. 1, p. 310, 11. 

WYTHE. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

My apology for adding a postcript, to a discussion already perhaps too 
protracted, is the fact that the preceding sheets were in the liands of 
the printer, and all but the concluding pages had gone through the press, 
before the passage of Mr. Calhoun's late I'esolutions in the Senat« of 
the United States. A proceeding so extraordinary, — if indeed hence- 
forward any act of Congress in derogation of I'reedom and in d(;{erence 
to slavery, can be deemed extraordinary, — should not be passed in 
silence at such a crisis as the present ; especially as the passage of 
one of the resolutions by a vote of 36 to 9, exhibits a shift of position on 
the part of the South, as sudden as it is unaccountable, being nothing 
less than the surrender of a fortress which until then, they had defended 
with the pertinacity of a blind and almost infuriated fatuity. Upon the 
discussions during the pendency of the resolutions, and upon the vote, 
by which they were carried, I make no comment, save only to record 
my exultation in the fact there exhibited, that great emergencies are 
true touchstones, and that henceforward, until this question is settled, 
whoever holds a scat in Congress will find ujjon, and around him, a 
pressure strong enough to test him — a local bki/.e that will find its way 
through the carefully adjusted cloak of fair pretension, and the seven- 
fold brass of two-faced political intrigue, and no-faced non coinmiltdUsm, 
piercing to the dividing asunder of joints and marrow. Be it known 
to every northern man who aspires to a seat in our national councils, 
that hereafter congressional action on this subject Avill be a mighty 
REVELATOR — making secret thoughts public property, and proclaiming 
on the house-tops what is whispered in the ear — smiting off" masks, and 
bursting open sepulchres beautiful outwardly, and up-heaving to the sun 
their dead men's bones. To such we say, — liemcmber the Missouri 
Question, and the fate of those who then sold the free states and their 
oion birthright ! 

Passing by the resolutions generally without remark — the attention 
of the reader is specially solicited to Mr. Clay's substitute for Mr. 
Calhoun's fifth resolution. 

" Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by tlie 
states of Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic slavery 
existed in both of these states, including the ceded territor}-, and that, as 
it still continues in both of them, it could not bi; abolished within the 
District without a violation of that good faith, which was implied in 
the cession and in the acceptance of the territory ; nor, unless compen- 
sation were made to the proprietors ol" slaves, without a manifest in- 
fringement of an amendment to the constitution of the liiited States; 
nor without exciting a degree of just alarm and apprehension in the 



46 

states recognizing slavery, far transcending in mischievous tendency, 
any possible benefit which could be accomplished by the abolition." 
^- By advocating this resolution, the south shifted its mode of defence, 
not by taking a position entirely new, but by attempting to refortify an 
old one — abandoned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out 
against assault however unskilfully directed. In the debate on this 
resolution, the southern members of Congress silently drew off from the 
ground hitherto maintained by them, viz. — that Congress has no power 
by the constitution to abolish slavery in the District. 

The passage of this resolution — with the vote of every southern sena- 
tor, forms a new era in the discussion of this question. We cannot 
join in the lamentations of those who bewail it. We hail it, and rejoice 
in it. It was as we would have had it — offered by a southern senator, 
advocated by southern senators, and on the ground that it " was no 
compromise " — that it embodied the true southern principle — that 
" this resolution stood on as high ground as Mr. Calhoun's." — (Mr. 
Preston) — " that Mr. Clay's resolution was as strong as Mr. Cal- 
houn's" — (Mr. Rives) — that "the resolution be (Mr. Calhoun) now- 
refused to support, was as strong as his own, and that in supporting it, 
there was no abandonment of principle by the south." — (Mr. Walker, 
of Mi.) — further, that it was advocated by the southern senators gene- 
rally as an expression of their views, and as setting the question of sla- 
very in the District on its true ground — that finally, when the question 
was taken, every slaveholding senator, including Mr. Calhoun himself, 
voted for the resolution 

By passing this resolution, and with such avowals, the south has 
unwittingly but explicitly, conceded the main point argued in the pre- 
ceding pages, and surrendered the whole question at issue between 
them and the petitioners for abolition in the District. 

The only ground taken against the right of Congress to abolish sla- 
very in the District is, that it existed in Maryland and Virginia Avhen 
the cession was made, and " as it still continues in both of them, it could 
not be abolished without a violation of that good faith which was im- 
plied in the cession," &c. The argument is not that exclusive sove- 
reignty has no power to abolish slavery within its jurisdiction, nor 
that the powers of even ordinary legislation cannot do it, nor that 
the clause granting Congress " exclusive legislation in all cases what- 
soever over such District," gives no power to do it; but that the im- 
expressed expectation of one of the parties that the other would not " in 
all cases " use the power which said party had consented might be used 
"in all cases," prohibits the use of it. The only cardinal point in the 
discussion, is here not only yielded, but formally laid down by the 
South as the leading article in their creed on the question of Congres- 
sional jurisdiction over slavery in the District. The reason given why 
Congress should not abolish, and the sole evidence that if it did, such 
abolition would be a violation of " good faith," is that " slavery still 
continues in those states," — thus admitting, that if slavery did not " still 
continue" in those States, Congress could abolish it in the District. 
The same admission is made also in the premises, which state that sla- 



47 

very existed in those states al the time of the cession, &c. Admitting 
that if it had not existed there then, but had yrown up in tlie District 
imder United States' laws. Congress might constitutionally abolish it. 
Or that if the ceded parts of those states had been the on/y [)arts in 
which slaves were held under their laws, Congress might liave abol- 
ished in such a contingency also. The cession in that case leaving no 
slaves in those states, — no "good faith" would be ''implied'' in it, 
nor any " violated" by an act of abolition. The resolution makes vir- 
tually this further admission, that if Maryland and Virginia should at 
once abolish their slavery, Congress might at once abolish it in the 
District. The principle goes even further than tliis, and requires Con- 
gress in such case to abolish slavery in the District "by the good faith 
implied in the cession and acceptance of the territory." Since, accord- 
ing to the spirit and scope of the resolution, this '• implied gocxl faith " 
of Maryland and Virginia in making the cession, was, that Congress 
would do nothing within the District which should counteract the poli- 
cy, or discredit the " institutions," or call in question t!ic usages, or 
even in any way ruffle the prejudices of those states, or do what they 
might think would unfavorably bear upon their interests ; themselves of 
course being the judges. 

But let us dissect another limb of the resolution. What is to be un- 
derstood by "that good taith which was implied?" It is of course an 
admission that such a condition was not expressed in the acts of cession 
— that in their terms there is nothing restricting the power of Congress 
on the subject of slavery in the District. This " implied faith," then, 
rests on no clause or word in the United States' Constitution, or in the 
acts of cession, or in the acts of Congress accepting the cession, nor 
on any declarations of the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, nor 
on any act of theirs, nor on any declaration of the jjcople of those states, 
nor on the testimony of the Washingtons, Jctfersons, Madisons, Chases, 
JVlartins, and Jennifers, of those states and times. The assertion rests 
on itself alo7ie .' Mr. Clay guesses that Maryland and Virginia sup- 
posed that Congress would by no means tise the power given them by 
the Constitution, except in such ways as would be well pleasing in the 
eyes of those states ; especially as one of them was the *• Ancient Do- 
minion!" And now after half a century, this assumed expectation of 
Maryland and Virginia, the existence of which is mere matter of con- 
jecture with the 36 senators, is conjured up and duly installed upon the 
judgment-seat of final appeal, before whose nod constitutions ai'e to flee 
away, and with whom, solemn grants of power and explicit gua- 
ranties are, when weighed in the balance, altogether lighter than 
vanity ! 

But survey it in another light. Why did Maryland and Virginia 
leave so much to be " implied V Why did they not in some way ex- 
press what lay so near their hearts ? Had their vocabulary run so low 
that a single word could not be eked out for the occasion? Or were 
those states so bashful of a sudden that they dare not speak out and 
tell what tlu y wanted ? Oi- did they take it for granted that Congress 
would always know their wishes by intuition, and always take them 



48 

for law ? If, us honorable senators tell us, Maryland and Virginia did 
verily travail with such abounding faith, why brought they forth no 
works 1 

It is as true in legislation as in religion, that the only evidence of 
" faith" is works, and that " faith" without works is dead, i. e. has no 
power. But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing expressed, 
an " implied" faith without works, is omnipotent ! Mr. Clay is lawyer 
enough to know that Maryland and Virginia notions of constitutional 
power, abrogate no grant, and that to plead them in a court of law, 
would be of small service, except to jostle " their Honors' " gravity ! 
He need not be told that the Constitution gives Congress " power to 
exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such Dis- 
trict ;" nor that Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of ces- 
sion with this clause before their eyes, and declared those acts made " in 
pursuance"" of it. Those states knew that the U. S. Constitution had 
left nothing to be " implied'^ as to the power of Congress over the Dis- 
trict ; an admonition quite sufficient, one would think, to put them on 
their guard, and lead them to eschew vague implications, and to resort 
to stipulations. They knew, moreovei', that those were times when, in 
mattei's of high import, nothing was left to be " implied." The colo- 
nies were then pauting from a twenty years' conflict with the mother 
country, about bills of rights, charters, treaties, constitutions, grants, 
limitations, and acts of cession. The severities of a long and terrible 
discipline had taught them to guard at all points legislative grants, that 
their exact import and limit might be self-evident — leaving no scope for 
a blind "faith" that somchoio in the lottery of chances, every ticket 
would turn up a prize. Toil, suffering, blood, and treasure outpoured 
like water over a whole generation, counselled them to make all sure 
by the use of explicit terms, and well clicsen words, and just enough of 
them. The Constitution of the United States, with its amendments, 
those of the individual states, the national treaties, and the public docu- 
ments of the general and state governments at that period, show the 
universal conviction of legislative bodies, that nothing should be left to 
be " implied," when great public interests were at stake. 

Further : suppose Maryland and Virginia had expressed their " im- 
plied faith" in words, and embodied it in their acts of cession as a proviso, 
declaring that Congress should not " exercise exclusive legislation in all 
cases whatsoever over the District," but that the " case " of slavery 
should be an exception : who does not know that Congress, if it had ac- 
cepted the cession on those terms, would have violated the Constitution ; 
and who that has studied the free mood of those times in its bearings 
on slavery — proofs of which are given in scores on the preceding 
pages — [See pp. 25 — 37.] can be made to believe that the people of the 
United States would have re-modelled their Constitution for the purpose 
of providing for slavery an inviolable sanctuary ; that when driven in 
from its outposts, and everywhere retreating discomfited before the 
march of freedom, it might be received into everlasting habitations on 
the common homestead and hearth-stone of the republic 1 Who can 
believe that Virginia made such a condition, or cherished such a pur- 



49 

pose, wlien Washington, Jefferson, Wythe, Patrick Henrj', St. George 
Tucker, and all her most illustrious men, were at that moment advo- 
eating the abolition of slavery by law ; when Washington had said, two 
years before, that Maryland and Virginia " must have laws for the 
gradual abolition of slavery, and at a period not remote ; and when Jef- 
ferson in his letter to Dr. Price, three years before the cession, had said, 
speaking of Virginia, " This is the next state to which we may turn our 
eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and 
oppression — -a conflict in which the sacred side is gaining daily re- 
cruits ;" when voluntary emancipations on the soil were then progress- 
ing at the rate of between one and two thousand annually, (See Judge 
Tucker's '' Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73 ;) when the public sentiment 
of Virginia had undergone, so mighty a revolution that the idea of the 
continuance of slavery as a permanent system could not be tolerated, 
though she then contained about half the slaves in the Union. Was 
this the time to stipulate for the perpetuity of slavery under the exclusive 
legislation of Congress ? and that too when at the same session every 
one of her delegation voted for the abolition of slaveiy in the North 
West Territory ; a territory which she herself had ceded to the Union, 
and surrendered along with it her jurisdiction over her citizens, inhabi- 
tants of that territory, who held slaves there — and whose slaves 
were emancipated by that act of Congress, in which all her delegation 
with one accord participated ? 

Now in view of the universal belief then prevalent, that slaver)^ in 
this country was doomed to short life, and especially that in Maryland 
and Virginia it would be speedily abolished — must we adopt the mon- 
strous conclusion that those states designed to bind Congress never to 
terminate it ? — that it was the iiitent of the Ancient Dominion thus to bind 
the United States by an " implied faith," and that when the national gov- 
ernment accepted the cession, she did solemnly thus plight her troth, 
and that Virginia did then so understand it ? Verily, honorable senators 
must suppose themselves deputed to do our thinking for us as well as 
our legislation, or rather, that they are themselves absolved from such 
drudgery by virtue of their oflSce ! 

Another absurdity of this " implied faith" dogma is, that where there 
was no power to exact an express pledge, there was none to demand £in 
implied one, and where there was no power to give the one, there was 
none to give the other. We have shown already that Congress could 
not have accepted the cession with such a condition. To have signed 
away a part of its constitutional grant of power would have been a 
breach of the Constitution. The Congress which accepted the cession 
was competent to pass a resolution pledging itself not to use all the 
power over the District committed to it by the Constitution. But here 
its power ended. Its resolution could only bind itself. It had no au- 
thority to bind a subsequent Congress. Could the members of one Con- 
gress say to those of another, because we do not choose to exercise all 
the authority vested in us by the Constitution, therefore you shall 
not ? This would have been a prohibition to do what the Constitu. 
lion gives power to do. Each successive Congress would still have 

7 



50 

gone to THE Constitution for its power, brushing away in its course 
the cobwebs stretched across its path by the officiousness of an im- 
pertinent predecessor. Again, the legislatures of Virginia and Mary- 
land, had no power to bind Congress, either by an express or an im- 
plied pledge, never to abolish slavery in the District. Those legis- 
latures had no power to bind themselves never to abolish slavery 
within their own territories — ^the ceded parts included. Where then 
would they get power to bind another not to do what they had no 
power to bind themselves not to do? If a legislature could not in this 
respect control the successive legislatures of its own State, could it con- 
trol the successive Congresses of the United States ? 

But perhaps we shall be told, that the " implied faith " of Maryland 
and Virginia was not that Congress should never abolish slavery in the 
District, but that it should not do it until they had done it within their 
bounds ! Verily this " faith" comes little shoi t of the faith of miracles ! 
Maryland and Virginia i^.ave '• good faith " that Congress will not 
abolish until they do ; and then just as " good faith" that Congress will 
abolish tvhen they do ! Excellently accommodated ! Did those states 
suppose that Congress would legislate over the national domain, for 
Maryland and Virginia alone ? And who, did they suppose, would be 
judges in the matter? — themselves merely ? or the whole Union? 

This " good faith implied in the cession" is no longer of doubtful in- 
terpretation. The principle at the bottom of it, when fairly stated, is 
this : — That the Government of the United States are bound in " good 
faith " to do in the District of Columbia, without demurring, just what 
and when, Maryland and Virginia do within their own bounds. In 
short, that the general government is eased of all the burdens of legis- 
lation w'ithin its exclusive jurisdiction, save that of hiring a scrivener to 
copy off the acts of the Maryland and Virginia legislatures as fast as 
they are passed, and engross them, under the title of " Laws of the 
United States for the District of Columbia !" A slight additional ex- 
pense would also be incurred in keeping up an express between the cap- 
itols of those States and Washington city, bringing Congress from time 
to time its " instructions " from head quarters ! 

What a " glorious Union" this doctrine of Mr. Clay bequeaths to the 
people of the United States ! We have been permitted to set up at our 
own expense, and on our own territory, two great sounding-boards 
called " Senate Chamber" and " Representatives' Hall," for the purpose 
of sending abi-oad " by authority" national echoes of state legislation ! 
— permitted also to keep in our pay a corps of pliant national musi- 
cians, with peremptory instructions to sound on any line of the stafl' 
according as Virginia and Maryland may give the sovereign key note ! 

A careful analysis of Mr. Clay's resolution and of the discussions upon 
it, will convince every fair mind that this is but the legitimate carrying out 
of the principle pervading both. They proceed virtually upon the hy- 
pothesis that the will and pleasure of Virginia and Maryland are para- 
mount to those of the Union. If the original design of setting apart a 
federal district had been for the sole accommodation of the south, there 
could hardly have been higher assumption or louder vaunting. The only 



61 

object o( having such a District was in effect totally perverted in the re- 
solution of Mr. Clay, and in the discussions of the entire southern delega- 
tion, upon its passage. Instead of taking the ground, that the benefit of 
the whole Union was the sole object oi'a federal district, and that it was to 
be legislated over y'or this end — the resoluiion proceeds upon an hypothe- 
sis totally the reverse. It takes a single point of state policy, and exalts 
it above national interests, utterly overshadowing them ; abrogating 
national rights : making void a clause of the Constitution : humbling 
the general government into a subject crouching for favors to a supe- 
rior, and that too within its own exclusive jurisdiction. All the attri- 
butes of sovereignt}^ vested in Congress by the Constitution, it impales 
upon the point of an alleged implication. And tliis is Mr. Clay's peace- 
offering, to the lust of power and the ravenings of state encroachment ! 
A " compromise," forsooth ! that sinks the general government on its 
own territory, into a mere colony, with Virginia and Maryland for its 
" mother country !" It is refreshing to turn from these shallow, dis- 
torted constructions and servile cringings, to the high bearing of other 
southern men in other times ; men, who as legislators and lawyers, 
scorned to accommodate their intcrjjrctations of constitutions and char- 
ters to geographical lines, or to bend them to the purposes oi' a political 
canvass. In the celebrated case of Cohens vs. the State of Virginia, 
Hon. William Pinkney, late of Baltimore, and Hon. Walter Jones, of 
Washington city, with other eminent constitutional lawyers, prepared 
an elaborate opinion, from which the following is an extract : '• Nor is 
there any danger to be apprehended from allowing to Congressional 
legislation with regard to the District of Columbia, its fullest effect. 
Congress is responsible to the States, and to the people for that legisla- 
tion. It is in truth the legislation of the states over a district placed 
under their control for their own benefit, not for that of the Dis- 
trict, except as the prosperity of the District is involved, and necessary 
to the general advantage." — [Life of Pinkney, p. 612.] 

This profound legal opinion asserts, 1st, that Congressional legisla- 
tion over the District, is " the legislation of the states and the people,^* 
(not of two states, and a mere fraction of the people ;) 2d. " Over a 
District placed under their control," i. e. under the control of aU the 
States, not of two twenty.sivths of them. 3d. That it was thus put under 
their control ^'for their ow^n benefit." 4th. It asserts that the design 
of this exclusive control of Congress over the District was " not for the 
benefit of the District" except as that if. connected with, and n means of 
promoting the general advantage. If this is the case with tbe District, 
which is directly concerned, it is pre-eminently so with Mai'\iand and 
Virginia, which are but indirectly interested. The argument of Mr. 
Madison in the Congress of '89, an extract from which has l)cen given 
on a preceding page, lays down the same principle ; that though any 
matter " may be a local affair, yet if it involves national expense or 
SAFETY, it he co7nes of concern to every part of the union, and is a proper 
subject for the consideration of those charged with the general administra- 
tion of the government." — Cong. Reg. vol. 1. p. 310. 

But these are only the initiator)' absurdities of this " good failh im- 



52 

f plied." Mr. Clay's resolution aptly illustrates the principle, that error 
not only conflicts with truth, but is generally at issue with itself. For 
if it would be a violation of " good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, for 
Congress to abolish slavery in the District, it would be equally a viola- 
tion for Congress to do it with the consent, or even at the unanimous 
petition of the people of the District : yet for years it has been the 
southern doctrine, that if the people of the District demand of Congress 
relief in this respect, it has power, as their local legislature, to grant it, 
and by abolishing slavery there, carry out the will of the citizens. But 
now new light has broken in ! The optics of Mr. Clay have pierced 
the millstone with a deeper insight, and discoveries thicken faster than 
they can be telegraphed ! Congress has no power, O no, not a modi- 
cum ! to help the slaveholders of the District, however loudly they may 
clamor for it. The southern doctrine, that Congress is to the District 
a mere local Legislature to do its pleasure, is tumbled from the genitive 
into the vocative ! Hard tate — and that too at the hands of those who 
begat it ! The reasonings of Messrs. Pinckney and Wise, are now 
found to be wholly at fault, and the chanticleer rhetoric of Messrs. 
Glascock and Garland stalks featherless and crest-fallen. For the 
resolution sweeps by the board all those stereotyped common-places, 
such as " Congress a local Legislature," " consent of the District," 
*' bound to consult the wishes of the District," with other catch phrases , 
which for the last two sessions of Congress have served to eke out 
scanty supplies. It declares, that as slavery existed in Maryland and 
Virginia at the time of the cession, and as it still continues in both those 
states, it could not be abolished in the District without a violation of 
" that good faith," &c. 

But let us see where this principle will lead us. If " implied faith" 
to Maryland and Virginia restrains Congress from the abolition of sla- 
very in the District, because those states have not abolished their sla- 
very, it requires Congress to do in the District what those states have 
done within their own limits, i. e., restrain others from abolishing it. 
Upon the same principle Congress is bound to prohibit emancipation wiih. 
in the District. There is no stopping place for this plighted " faith." 
Congress must not only refrain from laying violent hands on slaveiy, 
and see to it that the slaveholders themselves do not, but it is bound to 
keep the system up to the Maryland and Virginia standard of vigor ! 

Again, if the good faith of Congress to Virginia and Maryland re- 
quires that slavery should exist in the District, while it exists in those 
states, it requires that it should exist there as it exists in those states. 
If to abolish every form of slavery in the District would violate good 
faith, to abolish the form existing in those states, and to substitute 
a different one, would also violate it. The Congressional " good 
faith" is to be kept not only with slavery, but with the Maryland and 
Virginia systems of slavery. The faith of those states being not that 
Congress would maintain a system, but their system ; otherwise instead 
oi sustaining, Congress would counteract their policy — principles would 
be brought into action there conflicting with their system, and thus the 
true sprit of the "implied" pledge would be violated. On this princi- 



6^ 

pie, so long as'slaves are " chattels personal" in Virginia and Maryland, 
Congress could not make them real estate in the District, as 
they are in Louisiana ; nor could it permit slaves to read, nor to wor- 
ship God according to conscience ; nor could it grant them trial by 
jury, nor legalize marriage ; nor require the master to give sufficient 
food and clothing ; nor prohibit the violent sundering of families — be- 
cause such provisions would conflict with the existing slave laws of 
Virginia and Maryland, and thus violate the "good faith implied," &c. 
So the principle of the resolution binds Congress in all these particu- 
lars : 1st. Not to abolish slavery in the District until Virginia and 
Maryland abolish. 2d. Not to abolish any fart of it that exists in 
those states. 3d. Not to abolish any form or appendage of it still ex- 
isting in those states. 4th. To abolish when they do. 5th. To in- 
crease or abate its rigors when, how, and as the same are modified by 
those states. In a word. Congressional action in the District is to 
float passively in the wake of legislative action on the subject in those 
states. 

But here comes a dilemma. Suppose the legislation of those states 
should steer different courses — then there would be two wakes ! Can 
Congress float in both ? Yea, verily ! Nothing is too hard for it ! Its 
obsequiousness equals its " power of legislation in a// cases whatsoever." 
It can float up on the Virginia tide, and ebb down on the Maryland. 
What Maryland does. Congress will do in the Maryland part. What 
Virginia does, Congress will do in the Virginia part. Though it might 
not always be able to run at the bidding of both at once, especially in 
different directions, yet if it obeyed orders cheerfully, and " kept in its 
place," according to its " good faith implied," impossibilities might not 
be rigidly exacted. True, we have the highest sanction for the maxim 
that no 7)ia/i can serve two masters — but if " corporations have no 
souls," analogy would absolve Congress on that score, or at most give 
it only a very small soul — not large enough to be at all in the way, as 
an exception to the universal rule laid down in the maxim ! 

In following out the absurdities of this " implied good faith," it will 
be seen at once that the doctrine of Mr. Clay's Resolution extends to 
all the subjects of legislation existing in Marj'land and Virginia, 
which exist also within the District. Every system, " institution," 
law, and established usage there, is placed beyond Congressional con- 
trol equally with slavery, and by the same " implied faith." Tlie abo- 
lition of the lottery system in the District as an immorality, was a fla- 
grant breach of this " good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, as the 
system "still continued in those states." So to abolish imprisonment 
for debt, or capital punishment, to remodel the bank system, the power 
of corporation^, the militia law, laws of limitation, &c., in the District, 
unUss Virginia and Maryland took the lead, would violate the "good 
faith implied in the cession." 

That in the acts of cession no such "good faith" was "implied by 
Virginia and Maryland as is claimed in the Resolution, we argue from 
the Tact, that in 1784 Virginia ceded lo the United States all her north- 
west territory, with the special proviso that her citizens inhabiting that 



54 

territory should " have their possessions and titles confirmed to thenn, 
and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and hberties." (See 
Journals of Congress, vol. 9, p. 63.) The cession was made in the 
form of a deed, and signed by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Ar- 
thur Lee, and James Munroe. Many of these inhabitants held slaves. 
Three years after the cession, the Virginia delegation in Congress j^ro- 
posed the passage of an ordinance which should abolish slavery, in 
that territory, and declare that it should never thereafter exist there. 
All the members of Congress from Virginia and Maryland voted for 
this ordinance. Suppose some member of Congress had during the 
passage of the ordinance introduced the following resolution : " Resolv- 
ed, that when the northwest territory was ceded by Virginia to the 
United States, domestic slavery existed in that State, including the 
ceded territory, and as it still continues in that State, it could not be 
abolished within the territory without a violation of that good faith, 
which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the territo- 
ry." What would have been the indignant response of Grayson, 
Griffin, Madison, and the Lees, in the Congress of '87, to such a reso- 
lution, and of Carrington, Chairman of the Committee, who reported the 
ratification of the ordinance in the Congress of '89, and of Page and 
Parker, who with every other member of the Virginia delegation sup- 
ported it ? 

But to enumerate all the absurdities into which those interested for 
this resolution have plunged themselves, would be to make a quarto 
inventory. We decline the task ; and in conclusion merely add, that 
Mr. Clay, in presenting it, and each of the thirty-six Senators who 
voted for it, entered on the records of the Senate, and proclaimed to 
the world, a most unworthy accusation against the millions of Ameri- 
can citizens who have during nearly half a century petitioned the na- 
tional legislature to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, — charg- 
ing them either with the ignorance or the impiety of praying the nation 
to violate its "plighted faith." The resolution virtually indicts at 
the bar of public opinion, and brands with odium, all the early Manu- 
mission Societies, the first petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the 
District, and for a long time the only ones, petitioning from year to 
year through evil report and good report, still petitioning, by individual 
societies and in their national conventions. 

But as if it were not enough to table the charge against such men as 
Benjamin Rush, William Rawle, John S(.'rgeant, Roberts Vaux, Cad- 
wallader Colden, and Peter A. Jay, — to whom we may add Rufus King, 
James Hillhouse, William Pinkney, Thomas Addis Emmett, Daniel D. 
Tompkins, De Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Daniel Webster, besides 
eleven hundred citizens of the District itself, headed by their Chief Jus- 
tice and Judges — even the sovereign States of Pennsylvania, New- York, 
Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut, whose legislatures have 
either memorialized Congress to abolish slavery in the District, or 
instructed their Senators to move such a measure, must be gravely 
informed by Messrs. Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, 
Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so 



55 

dull, they know not wliercof they atKrm, or that their moral sense is so 
blunted they can demand without compunction a violation of the na- 
tion's faith ! 

We have spoken already of the concessions unwittingly made in this 
resolution to the true doctrine of Congressional power over the District. 
For that concession, important as it is, we have small thanks to render. 
That such a resolution, passed with such an intent, and pressing at a 
thousand points on relations and interests vital to the free states, should 
be hailed, as it has been, by a portion of the northern press as a " com- 
promise " originating in deference to northern interests, and to be 
received by us as a free-will offering of disinterested benevolence, de- 
manding our gratitude to the mover, — may well cover us with shame. 
We deserve the humiliation and have well earned the mockery. Let 
it come ! 

If, after having been set up at auction in the public sales-room of the 
nation, and for thirty years, and by each of a score of" compromises," 
treacherously knocked off to the lowest bidder, and that without money 
and without price, the North, plundered and betrayed, will not, in this 
her accepted time, consider the things that belong to her peace before 
they are hidden from her eyes, then let her eat of the fruit of her own 
way, and be filled with her own devices ! Let the shorn and blinded 
giant grind in the prison-house ol' the Philistines, till taught by weari- 
ness and pain the folly of entrusting to Delilahs the secret and the cus- 
tody of his strength. 

Have the free States bound themselves by an oath never to profit by 
the lessons of experience ? If lost to reason, are they dead to instinct 
also? Can nothing rouse them to cast about for self preservation? 
And shall a life of tame surrenders be terminated by suicidal sacrifice? 

A "compromise!" Bitter irony ! Is the plucked and hood-winked 
North to be wheedled by the sorcery of another Missouri compromise ? 
A compromise in which the South gained all, and the North lost all, 
and lost it forever. A compromise which embargoed the free laborer 
of the North and West, and clutched at the staff he leaned upon, to 
turn it into a bludgeon and fell him with its stroke. A compromise 
which wrested from liberty her boundless birthright domain, stretching 
westward to the sunset, while it gave to slavery loose reins and a free 
course, from the Mississippi to the Pacific. 

The resolution, as it finally passed, is here mserted. 

" Resolved, That the interference by the citizens of any of the states, 
with the view to the abolition of slavery in the District, is endangering 
the rights and security of the people of the District ; and that any act 
or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in the District, 
would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the states of 
Virginia and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people of the slave- 
holding states, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and 
endanger the Union." 

The vote upon the resolution stoutl as follows : 

Yeas. — Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benton, Black, Buchanan, Brown, 
Calhoun, Clay of Alabam^ Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, 

. f • 



56 

Cuthbert, Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King, Lumpkin, Lyon, Nicholas, 
Niles, Norvell, Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane, Robinson, Sevier. Smith, 
of Connecticut, Strange, Tallmadge, Tipton, Walker, Wliite, Williams, 
Wright, Young— 36. 

Nays. — Messrs. DAVIS, KNIGHT, McKEAN, MORRIS, 
PRENTISS, RUGGLES, SMITH, of Indiana, SWIFT, WEB- 
STER— 9. 



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